Burn
by Sewer Slider
Summary: AU. When the turtles fell into a storm drain, followed by a cannister of mutagen, there was no Splinter around to see the accident and things turned out a little... differently. COMPLETE!
1. Prologue Part One

Another story! I promise, I am still working on Estranged but this bunny refuses to give me a break and so I decided to type it up real quick like. Which, in SS language, means a few days.

It's an AU and contains graphic scenes, turtle torture and torment, character death and foul language. For these reasons I've given the fic an M rating. Don't read if you don't like those kinda things. At the beginning the turtles are not central, but that will change in later chapters. The chapters are shorter than those in most of my fics. And big thanks to Pi90Katana, who came up with the names for many of the chapters! I prefer to name chapters but I'm not always good at it, so her suggestions were a Godsend!

Oh, almost forgot. I don't own the characters and I make no money from my depraved ramblings. Poverty is my constant companion. Please don't sue.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

_Raphael emerged wearily from the tunnel, limping slowly, head bowed. The floodlight picked him out easily, casting his shadow onto the floor behind him, stretched out to almost fifteen feet long._

_He was quite alone._

_Agent Bishop strode forward, raising a hand to his fellow operatives to indicate for them to remain where they were, his gun at the ready, taking no chances. He stopped a few inches from Raphael, who barely raised his head to look up. _

_Bishop glared at the turtle. "The others. Where are they?"_

"_They're..." Raphael shook his head. "There's no one else left."_

_Startled, Bishop realised that Raphael was barely holding his emotions in check. What had gone so cataclysmic wrong that a renowned hard-ass like Raph act this way? It was supposed to be a simple seek and contain, yet only one survivor walked out?_

_Infuriated, Bishop aimed the gun at Raphael. Raph raised an eye ridge but didn't flinch, staring down the barrel as if he didn't realise that it could ventilate his guts in a heartbeat. Then, he slowly raised his own hand and placed the palm over the barrel. If the trigger were pulled, the hand would be disintegrated along with half the turtle behind it. _

_Yet the message was clear._

_"Shoot me then," said Raph wearily. "If ya really think it's gonna make things different, shoot me right now. But it won't change anything. Everyone's dead in there."_

_For a moment there was a standoff, Bishop's angry gaze boring into Raph's brown eyes – then he took the gun away, shoving it back into the holster in one angry motion._

"_You." Bishop pointed at a couple of agents who had been waiting outside in preparation to grab their prey. "Take him back to the lab."_

_The pair took Raph by his arms and led him away, the turtle not even bothering to argue let alone resist._

_Scowling, Bishop approached the entrance to the tunnel. Even from here he could feel the intense heat that was being generated from within. There was a fire down there, raging out of control. Something else to be concerned about._

_One simple mission, capture the quarry, blown all the way to hell. Figuratively and literally._

_What had gone so horribly wrong?_


	2. Prologue Part Two

Deep within the darkness of the sewers were the sounds of steps, two people splashing through the shallow water that ran through the system. The pair were making no effort to be quiet, joking and laughing, swapping stories.

"...She wanted it Georgie-boy, you better believe it!"

"Bullshit. No way you slipped one to some jail bait blonde behind a club. You're making it up."

"You go on believing that George. When we get outta here, I'll show ya the marks. That bitch knew how to _party_!"

"Marks don't prove nothing man, not one thing. Coulda come from some 50 year old hooker. Where's this damn tunnel anyway?"

"Two blocks over. And let me tell you, I never had to pay for a piece of ass. That girl was _perfect_. Blonde hair, perky tits, ass like... hey, what the fuck's that?"

The splashing sounds slowed as the two became more cautious.

"Is that something _glowing_?"

"You been to a club in the last decade George? One of those glow-sticks that they take with 'em these days is all. Some kid staggers home wasted, drops it down the storm drain."

"I dunno Gary, there's a lot of – _holy shit_! You see that? Something _moved_!"

"Probably a rat. Shit George, you're getting too old for this game if a little rat's gonna get you freaked."

"Didn't look like a rat."

"What else is it gonna – _fuck me_! What _is _that?"

The pair stopped dead, torches focused on the sight before them. Something was moving in the glowing mess. Four somethings.

"Some kinda – tortoises?"

"Shit George, how the hell a tortoise gonna end up down here? Can't exactly flush 'em."

"Well they sure ain't terrapins. They're huge!"

"I heard that turtles grow huge in the ocean."

"Think they came from the river?"

"Shit, how should I know? Come on, let's get on with that tunnel."

"You wanna just leave 'em here? That ain't right Gary."

"Right, you wanna keep 'em as pets? Look at that shit all over 'em, probably toxic waste or something. Touch that and your hair'll probably fall out and your balls'll shrivel up into walnuts. Not that either of them'll make much difference to you."

"Screw you. Can't leave 'em here. Maybe we should report 'em to decontamination or something."

"Yeah, waste half the frigging day!"

"It's procedure."

"_Fuck_ procedure!"

"We gotta. Might be dangerous, that stuff."

"Shit-fire, save me from bleeding heart animal lovers."

&&&&&&&&

Agent Bishop stared through the bars at the creatures within the cage. Turtles, the scientists had told him. Ordinary turtles one could buy in any pet shop. Or at least, they had been, before being doused in whatever the hell that green goop was. Now they were... something else.

At least four times the size of normal turtles for a start. Their bodies were changing shape too and they were reacting to the world around them in a way not typical for animals. They seemed almost to be absorbing what went on around them, learning from it.

"You;re trying to tell me that these things aren't extra terrestrial? That they're some kind of – mutation?"

The scientist beside him nodded. "Whatever this chemical is that they were exposed to seems to have brought on radical physical changes. I plan to run further tests on them, see just how far-reaching these changes are..."

"Why not merely dissect them, see how the chemical has affected them that way?"

"With respect Mr Bishop, we don't know how long this chemicals effects will take to react. There may be changes to their genetic make up initially, but whether or not there are further changes remains to be seen. And observation of these turtles may tell us far more about the long term effects of the chemical than dissection could."

Bishop nodded, not entirely happy with the plan but knowing it was probably the best way to learn about the chemical. "I'm going to want some answers. Fast."

"Fast! Fast!"

Bishop and the scientist both turned their head, startled. One of the mutated turtles had crept closer to the bars and was balancing precariously on its hind legs, front legs resting against the bars, the changes in its feet already clear. It seemed impossible that the interjection could have come from the creature and yet...

"Fast!"

The turtles mouth twitched, almost as if it were trying to smile.

"Did the reptile just talk?" Bishop wouldn't normally have shown so much shock, but this had been the last thing he had been expecting.

"Oh. My. GOD!" The scientist went into paroxysms of delight, pressing his face up against the cage. "You can talk? Say something else!"

"Fast! Fast!"

"This is – this is HUGE! They're sentient! Intelligent!" The scientist reached through the bars and tickled the turtle under the chin. "Aren't you a clever little thing! Aren't you!"

Bishop massaged his temples. "You'll be giving them names next."

"Fast!"

"We have to report this right away!" The scientist gave the four turtles a last, amazed look before hurrying away. Bishop scowled angrily. Those – creatures – were freaking him out and it looked like he'd be stuck with them for a long time to come.

But when the orders arrived, less than twenty-four hours later, he wasn't altogether displeased with them.


	3. We Three

&&&&&&&&&&&

_Some nineteen years later..._

"See, it's easy. Just add the right ingredients and everything works out fine. It's just like baking a cake!"

"Yeah, except when you mess up baking a cake your oven gets covered in goo rather than turned into a smoking hole in the ground." Layla smiled and pushed her glasses further up her nose.

Michelangelo smiled back. "Yeah, Semtex can be touchy that way. It just takes some practice. Wanna try?"

Layla backed off, shaking her head. "Uh-uh. Some other time perhaps. I'm supposed to be starting off small!"

"Your choice," said Mikey with a shrug. "How small?"

"Molotov cocktail small?"

"Wuss!" Mikey laughed at the woman. "Beside, Molotov's have no finesse. Too hard to control, strictly amateur night. Tell you what, I'll show you how to rig a gun to blow when the trigger's pulled. Useful skill should you get the chance to disable an enemy's firearms."

"Sure thing!"

Layla's enthusiasm for the task made Mikey smile again. She seemed too young to be working with them, but then again if the boss said she was ready to learn more, then it was his job to teach. And it didn't hurt that she was cute in an understated way, cheerful and able to grasp what he told her with minimal explanation.

Most of the time anyway. As he was mid-way through telling her about the right way to rig the gun, he could sense that she was looking not at the weapon he used to demonstrate, but on him. For a moment he was slightly flustered – he wasn't used to scrutiny from women, especially not cute, funny ones – then he decided to speak up.

"Is something wrong? You're not paying attention."

"Oh! Um..." Layla gave an embarrassed laugh. "It's just, um, I was wondering – um, I don't want to offend you, but, um..."

Mikey slapped a hand to his forehead. "It's the giant turtle thing, isn't it? So it _is noticeable_!"

"Well, yeah." She gave the same embarrassed laugh. "It's just, they kinda warned me you weren't, um, strictly human but I thought they were teasing the new kid, y'know?"

"Teasing the new kid would be _not_ telling you," said Mikey, recalling the only time that joke had been played on a new recruit some six months previously. After the screaming fit the guy had thrown, he hadn't lasted five minutes in the division. "It's kind of a long story. But I'll give you the short version. As far as can be told, my two brothers and I were mutated from normal turtles by unknown means, found by some maintainer dude in the sewers and brought to the lab. When they found out we were sentient, they tried to treat us as normally as possible and find out how we came to be like we are. And make sure we weren't from outer space of course, but they proved that quickly enough. Good thing too. I've never been fond of vivisection."

Layla smiled, as he hoped she would. Telling his origin story was never fun and it was even less fun when telling it to someone like her. Admitting he used to be a pet really put a dampener on any kind of romantic life...

_What romantic life?_

"One of the scientists gave us names – his daughter was studying art history and we got named after her favourite artists. Good thing she wasn't any younger or we might have ended up being Mickey, Donald and Goofy."

Layla sniggered. "Which one would you have been? Goofy?"

"Nah, that'd be my brother Raph. Just because it'd irritate him so much."

He was about to return to his explanation when her pager bleeped. She unclipped it from her belt, read it and frowned. "Damn, I have to go. Same time tomorrow?"

"For sure." Mikey pretended to clean away the explosives he had been demonstrating, sneakily watching her as she left. She really filled out those combat pants. Damn, if only he had thought to tell her he was really a mutant _human_, then maybe...

_Maybe nothing. Makes no difference._

_Man, I hate being a turtle._

Layla made her way further into the compound, not hurrying. She'd get there in her own time and no one would complain. She was too important. She wasn't exactly the wide-eyed newbie that Michelangelo had taken her for.

The only drawback to that was what he would do if he ever found that out.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

_BLAM!_

_BLAM!_

_BLAM!_

Raphael pressed the button that would bring the target close enough for him to check how many bullets had hit their mark. The paper was shaped like a man and upon inspection, he saw enough had hit the bullseye to make one large hole rather than several small ones. There were a few strays around it and the head had been blasted into tatters. Not too bad.

But not as good as he would like.

Scowling, he checked over the weapon. It was a special issue, given only to the elite of the black ops. Out of all of the operatives, he was the best shot, in the best shape. He pushed himself to be the best, not content with mediocrity.

_Because if I became expendable..._

If he did, then there was still plenty that could be learned from him. Dead or alive.

In honesty, he was amazed that the order to use them as test subjects hadn't come down as soon as they were discovered, but Bishop had told him once that one of the scientists had petitioned long and hard for the chance to see how intelligent they could become, what the long term effects of whatever had been done to them were. Raph imagined that Bishop hadn't been happy about that, but even he would have to admit the gamble had paid off. Alive, the three of them had still been able to give him blood samples and they had isolated the mutagen several years previously, studying its effects right up to the present. That there were already three mutants meant they didn't have to wait to isolate the mutagen before starting their experiments, saving them twenty years. And they knew from the turtles that they could expect intelligence and speech.

Still, Bishop sometimes seemed disappointed that he hadn't been able to get his answers just by tearing them apart. Then again, Bishop had some kind of mission to protect the human race going on and the turtles may be humanoid but they sure would never pass as homo sapien. He resented that in spite of his pleas to his superiors, they had been allowed to live. Not that he was above using their uniqueness to further his own agenda should the need arise.

And raised exclusively as genetic freaks, the many scientists trying to gage the extent of their intelligence and other attributes, was it any wonder that they had all become proficient in the areas specialised in by those around them?

Raphael smirked and raised his weapon again, pressing the button that would give him a fresh target to aim for. He had shot his first gun at the age of around three, or so the scientists amazed by him estimated. They had wanted to test his hand to eye co-ordination and his ability to aim. He had missed the target by a mile and ever since been determined that he would master weapons. Failing wasn't an option.

He had no illusions about what would happen to them should their usefulness end.

And with that in mind, he had ingratiated himself into the organisation, making sure he was a crack shot, superb sniper, strong enough to hold his own in a fight. His brothers had done the same, whether consciously or unconsciously. The three of them were among the best operatives the group had.

When the alien threat arose, the human race could count three non-humans among their protectors.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Glancing at the grey in the pod, Donatello sighed. The creature looked almost alive, moving in the fluid that kept its body vital and fresh, although it had been dead for many decades, the movement merely the eddy's of water causing the limbs to float.

Damn, those things were creepy.

He rubbed his eyes and went back to his notes. Although the scientists who had studied them as infants would now guess his age as around twenty or so, he had a formidable intelligence that hadn't gone unnoticed and had been put to good use. A group of scientists at the facility were convinced it was possible to bioengineer an alien like the one in the tube and although Don had initially been sceptical, he realised it may just be possible. If they could replicate the alien, it would be a step toward understanding it and maybe working out how better to protect themselves from invasion, should it ever come to that.

But he wasn't getting much joy from staring at his notes. His concentration was fried. Maybe he should take some sleep or something. He wasn't doing a lot of good where he was...

His pager went off. With a sigh, he checked the number and realised it was Dr Adamson, another scientist with whom he worked. Picking up the office phone, he called out to see what the big emergency was.

"Donatello, we nailed it!"

That woke him up. "We did?"

"Yeah, that new DNA code you came up with really did the trick. Seems like we succeeded! But you'd better get your shell down here. I had to notify Agent Bishop and he's on his way here right now."

"Right." Don felt a wave of dislike for the head of the facility and forced it back. "I'll be there in a moment."

Slamming the phone back onto its cradle, he raced out of the room and toward the lab where most of the bioengineering had been going on. In spite of the late hour, there were three scientists in the room, Dr Adamson and two of his more enthusiastic assistants.

"Check it out Donnie-boy!" Adamson indicated to a stasis chamber where another grey floated. It might not have been moving but the differences between it and the dead specimen were obvious. This one was alive.

"Wow!" Don peered into the stasis tube, fascinated. "We really pulled it off!"

"Sure did," replied Adamson, holding out a plastic cup. "Champagne?"

"Thanks." Don sipped the liquid, allowing himself to get swept up in the excitement of the moment. Having to live at the facility had its drawbacks – the lack of freedom, the knowledge that he was as much of a scientific observation as anything he kept in a petri dish, the constant nagging fear of what would happen if he or his two brothers ever became expendable – but moments like this almost made up for it.

Almost.

When Bishop finally arrived, Don was almost at the end of his second cup of champagne and there was a definite party mood in the air. The appearance of the Agent dampened the enthusiasm somewhat, but it would have taken a miracle for the jubilation to be held in check entirely.

"Is this it?" Bishop strode over to the stasis tube and Don had to restrain himself from informing the man that it sure as hell wasn't modern art.

"That's it," said Adamson. "Alive and kicking. Beautiful, isn't it?"

"humph." Bishop indicated to the controls of the tube. "Let it out."

"Um, sir?" Adamson's voice was hesitant. "I don't know if that's wise. We don't know it's hostility level or..."

"I can handle it man, just do it!"

Nervously, Adamson tapped in the code that would release the grey. Don watched, tensed to head for the door if things went bad. He didn't have a gun with him and didn't want to chance facing the bioengineered alien in hand to hand combat. He had some training in that field, but not so much that he would trust his abilities against it.

The grey emerged from the tube, seemingly disoriented, doing nothing more than gazing at Bishop. And then a grimace of anger appeared on the Agents face and spinning around, he kicked the alien in the midsection.

Don blinked. _That was unexpected..._ Where had the aggression come from? Bishop wasn't the most stable of guys, or so he suspected, but it was him who had told them to work on the alien and to keep him updated with the progress. Why would he attack something he had taken such a personal interest in?

The alien began to swell and with a sinking heart, Don realised that something was amiss. The aliens system had to be unstable. They hadn't perfected the bioengineering after all.

The grey exploded, showering the lab and Bishop in genetic waste.

"You call _this_ disaster a breakthrough?"

"Uh..." Adamson tried to think fast. "It is in a way sir. After all, now we know what can be done, we can perfect the bioengineering process in order to stabilise and evolve the prototypes system and..."

"Spare me the details," growled Bishop, glaring at his ruined suit. "Just get it done. And get me a sample of that – whatever it is."

Don observed that Bishop was pretty much covered in samples of the 'whatever it was' and fought back laughter. The last thing he needed was to gain Bishop's ire.

"Guess we celebrated too soon," said Adamson ruefully after Bishop had left.

"We bioengineered an alien life form," Don reminded him. "I'd hardly call that a failure. Bishop's just too damn impatient."

"Yeah," sighed Adamson, checking the mess on the floor. "What does he want with the genetic material anyway? Not like he can do anything with it that we can't."

"We're not the only scientists working here," said Don, painfully aware of the fact. "He probably wants one of the other teams to do some investigating into it too."

_No doubt one of the teams that does the weird, freaky experiments,_ he thought to himself. _I'm glad they're nothing to do with me._


	4. Mutants

_Bishop entered the room where the mutated turtles were being kept, observing silently for a moment as the scientist who had been present with him when they discovered the things could talk cooed over them. The previous day, Bishop had been unable to recall the mans name, but according to the memo it was Dr Hall, expert in animal behaviour and biology, probably the most exert member at their disposal at that time. According to the memo, Dr Hall had requested – and been granted – a team of other scientists with expertise including human psychology, human physiology, mutagen's and evolutionary history – Bishop had almost smiled when he read the last one. _

_But his concern was not the welfare or future of the creatures, it was national security. How did a powerful mutagen come to be beneath the city streets and more importantly, who could have engineered it? Some of the most senior chemists and biologists in the country were currently going gaga over the samples that had been gathered, stating unequivocally that no study of mutagens had ever gone this far. It had advanced their research by years already and they'd barely had the stuff five minutes. The implications of a non-Government agency being able to create such a substance were unsettling no matter what explanations he considered._

_"Dr Hall."_

_Hall started at hearing Bishop's voice and turned around, his carefully neutral expression not fooling Bishop for a moment. "I take it you're here for your specimen"_

_"Yes, I'll take it immediately if you please."_

_"Him. You'll take him. They're all males, I checked."_

_"What does it matter?"_

_"It matters a great deal!" Hall pushed his glasses further up his nose, glaring at Bishop, anger lending him the courage to speak to the Agent more bluntly than he would have normally. "These are no longer household pets, they are wonders and I have no idea how you can see them as anything else."_

_"For my part Doctor, I fail to understand how you cannot see the importance of studying these beings further."_

_"I do see it. But I think the methods you proposed are reprehensible. They're living creatures!"_

_"So are the mice you use for dissection, but you don't write impassioned memos to the Department about their welfare." Growing bored of the conversation, Bishop strode toward the cage. "Do you have a preference over which should come with me?"_

_Hall narrowed his eyes, realising he was being mocked. "I would rather none of them did. It's my opinion that these beings display traits normally found only within humans – one of them speaks for heavens sake! With nurturing, we can discover more about the future possibilities of this mutagen and still be able to test their blood..."_

_"Dr Hall. You know I can't defy Department orders on the strength of your convictions. Even if I wanted to. Be satisfied that your arguments won them over enough for three of them to be left to your proposed team of experts. But one of them belongs to my team – and if you will not pick which, I shall take one at random."_

_"If you were to withdraw your proposal..."_

_"No."_

_Dr Hall sighed. "I can't be expected to pick which of the infants will be your experiment!"_

_"Then I shall." Bishop pushed past Hall and opened the lid of the cage. "My only instructions are that I am not to remove the talker. Which is it?"_

_"Donatello. Him, right there."_

_Bishop shot the doctor a contemptuous glance. "You named them? And I thought you were a professional. Growing too attached to them is a mistake. My team may well be granted the rest of them yet, should your best intentions fail. For all you know, your 'Donatello' may be merely a mimic. A parrot can speak and you wouldn't call it human."_

_"He's not a mimic and I'm sure that with time, all of them will be talking. Including whichever goes with you."_

_"This is getting us nowhere." Bishop reached into the cage with both hands and grabbed the first turtle he encountered by the shell, lifting it out, startled by the size and weight of the animal. "This one isn't the talker?"_

_"No. His name is Leonardo."_

_"Not anymore. We'll assign him a specimen number. It's far more apt than a name. The attachment you have to these things is unhealthy. I recommend if you find it too difficult to be impersonal about your work, you find a different job. Get me a cage for it."_

_"Him," corrected Hall icily, but got up to do what the Agent demanded, finding another cage that was roomy enough for the turtle to move about in. He suspected no one else Leonardo dealt with from now would show him any such consideration._

_Leonardo struggled against Bishop's grip, turning his head and snapping. Bishop didn't seem to notice. Hall handed over the cage and looked pointedly at the Agent. "He doesn't like being held like that."_

_"Its comfort is not a major concern of mine." Bishop waited for Hall to open the new cage and dropped the turtle unceremoniously inside. "Say goodbye."_

_Hall glared after Bishop as the Agent strode out of the lab, contemplating how much he hated the sanctimonious bastard. He wished he had been able to stress his beliefs more in the quick report he had filed to the Department, tell them just how miraculous these turtles were. But Bishop's report had been filed at the same time and although the majority had apparently agreed with Hall's theories, a dissenting factor had forced the bureau to err on the side of caution, allow Bishop his small triumph. At the expense of Leonardo._

_Returning to his seat in front of the cage, he sat down heavily and idly scratched Raphael's head. The turtle had raised himself onto his hind legs and was looking around, apparently wondering where Leonardo had vanished to so suddenly._

_"You'll forget," said the doctor, petting the creature. "You'll all forget as you get older and the mutagen changes you further. And that's a blessing. You'll never know that there were more of you, or that it was Agent Bishop who took Leonardo away."_

_&&&&&&&&&&_

Bishop raised an eyebrow at the scientist, Dr Lee, whom he'd had study the sample from the bioengineered alien Donatello's team had produced several days previously. "Have you discovered anything about this sample that Adamson hasn't?"

"Adamson has only been concerned with the regeneration and recreation of the greys to date," replied Dr Lee, a small smirk on his face. "We have looked in other areas and found out something very – interesting about the chemical makeup of this sample. If you'll turn your attention to this recording of one of our experiments earlier today..."

He pressed a button on a remote and the TV sprang to life, playing back what had been recorded. There was a counter in the corner of the screen, marking the time that the experiment had occurred. The picture revealed an ordinary white mouse in a cage, drinking from a water bottle.

"We introduced an amount of the sample to the rodent through its water," explained Lee. "This occurred several hours after we introduced the sample to the water, but this is the part I think you'll find most interesting."

The mouse left the water alone and scampered over to the food bowl, pausing at the side of it on its hind legs, without touching the food. Bishop leant closer to the screen, fascinated in spite of himself.

"Is it _shaking_?"

The scientist nodded, a grin coming over his face. "Very obviously so. We thought the water was going to kill it but – well, watch this."

The mouse on the screen suddenly fell to all fours and began to squeal, seeming to _grow_ right in front of their eyes. Bishop stared, his eyes widening as the rodents snout seemed to elongate and it squealed in pain. The torso thickened, the shoulders growing more pronounced, the tail swishing angrily. And all the time the mouse squealed shrilly.

The whole thing took less that five minutes. In the background of the cage, the shadows of the scientists and their startled exclamations were obvious, but it was the mouse that Bishop was unable to look away from, the changes being wrought to it.

"The sample you gave us literally changes the creature on a molecular level," said Lee, unable to keep the grin off his face any longer. "With your permission, we'd like to conduct further tests."

Bishop mused over the suggestion. "This must be kept highly classified you understand. Experiments such as this must be kept strictly under wraps. The country has signed any number of treaties prohibiting these types of tests."

"I understand sir. Only those with the highest security clearance."

"Report directly to me and _only _to me. I want a full written report of your findings on a daily basis and _any_ breakthroughs are to be reported to me _immediately_."

"Yes sir."

Bishop glanced back at the screen, where the mouse in the cage was so large it could move only a few steps before reaching the other side. "All future tests are to be carried out in the maximum security area. There can be no risk of any of this getting out. What happened to the mouse?"

"It's alive in the lab. Since we can easily replicate the study, I believe that we should dissect it to see what we can learn about the molecular changes undergone."

"Agreed. And I want you to get back to me with what you find as soon as you do." Bishop smiled nastily. "No doubt this is the next step in the mutagenetic field that this branch began investigating almost twenty years ago. Remind me, how many creatures have we managed to mutate with the synthetic mutagen from the turtles blood samples?"

"We have fourteen under observation currently. Ten reptiles, we found that the mutagen was more stable on them – due to the origin of the sample probably. The improved synthesis we came up with has proved more stable on mammals, they comprise the other four."

"Fortunate we were able to come up with such a generous ready supply of mutant DNA," said Bishop. "I would like you to attempt the experiment on one of the mutants."

"Yes sir," said Dr Lee. "There's a mutated gecko we had some success with. We mutated it at six months old just under seven years ago. Would that be suitable?"

"Whatever you think best Doctor," said Bishop, rising to leave. "I shall of course be present at that particular test."

"Of course," said the scientist, having expected nothing else.

&&&&&&&&&&&

When it happened, it happened fast.

One moment, the mutant gecko, specimen number 007685, had been timidly offering its arm for the latest round of injections. Then the plunger on the syringe had been depressed and everything had gone to hell in a hurry.

It _screamed_, bending over double and choking violently. It had long since learned to walk on its hind legs, having grown in a humanoid shape since its mutation, but it lost its motor controls and fell heavily to its knees. Panting harshly, it stared through the bars at the scientists gathered around and then howled as the skin began to ripple, the mutagen spreading through its body and changing its physical form at an alarming rate. The most startling change was its physical form, which began to thicken and grow mere seconds after its injection, after only a couple of minutes recognisable as reptilian but unidentifiable as to which one. The gecko's head elongated, its muscles became more pronounced.

"It's so much _faster_ than before!" said one of the scientists hoarsely. "The mouse was introduced to the sample orally, but introducing it directly into the blood stream seems to speed up reaction time!"

The gecko slammed itself against the bars and as one, the whole group started. They may have been trying to seem detached, but even witnessing what had happened to the mouse had left them unprepared for this.

And then the gecko sank to all fours, crouching over in an almost foetal position. Its breathing was still laboured and harsh. Overcoming his fear, Dr Lee cautiously approached the cage.

"For crying out loud man, _stay away_!" shouted Bishop.

"It's OK sir," replied Lee. "I'm too far for it to reach me. I think its just the strain of the change that's causing..."

The gecko used the bars to pull itself to its feet, glaring at Dr Lee. Prior to the transformation it had been a cowed thing, merely a test mutation to ensure that the mutagen was in fact an improvement on previous attempts, speaking little and with difficulty due to the shape of its tongue and snout. There was no longer anything of that specimen left. It seemed _enraged._

Without warning, it lashed out with its tail. Without the injection, the tail would not have reached, but the changes wrought on its body had also affected the tail and the tip caught the scientist beneath the chin, knocking him off his feet and sending him hurtling several yards, brought to an abrupt halt by a table on which more vials of the sample were being kept, along with notes, and equipment. The table collapsed, the scientist landing in a dazed heap in a pile of broken glass and sodden paper.

Pandemonium broke out in the lab. The shrieks of the former gecko echoed from the walls as someone else gave a small scream and a couple of the scientists moved forward with the intention of helping the injured man to his feet. A few turned their attention to the sodden notes, exclaiming in dismay although there were plenty of copies on hard drive.

_Oh hell_ thought Bishop.

"STOP RIGHT NOW!"

The scientists paused in whatever they were doing, goggling at Bishop in a way he may have thought comical under other circumstances. In the background, the gecko snarled and beat against the bars.

"Do you realise anyone who has touched that sample runs the risk of being contaminated? Back off!"

Those who had been moving forward help the injured man immediately stepped back, staring as if they expected him to sprout horns. Maybe they did expect just that. Those rescuing notes dropped them, some wiping their hands hurriedly on their lab coats.

Bishop strode through the mess, standing over the injured man and glaring at him. "Dr – Lee, isn't it?"

"Y-yes sir," said the man weakly, putting his hand to his wounded chin.

"You'll have to be isolated. You're covered in the serum."

"But Agent Bishop sir! I can't, I need a doctor..."

"You are a doctor. I'm sure you can deal with it." Bishop turned to the others. "All of you will have to remain on the facility. To ensure there's no risk to your health."

"With respect sir, I think the risk is minimal..." began another scientist and froze as Bishop turned to glare at him.

"It's not your choice to make, no matter how minimal the risk." He stared around at all the scientists, wondering how the brightest the country had to offer could lose their heads so quickly and forget to take simple precautions, the safety drills that had been repeated over and over again. Should one of their number come into contact with any of the chemicals they experimented with here, no one was to approach them. They were to be immediately isolated.

He failed to notice the movements of Dr Lee behind him.

"You are all to remain on the base until further notice, although I will allow you to keep working on this – interesting problem. But you will have to remain away from other people until we determine that the compound is not airborne."

None of the group mentioned that Bishop himself had been in the room with them and presumably at as least as much risk as the rest of them. The question may occur to them later, when they were less shocked – but Bishop thought he could get away with it for now and find a way around any potentially dangerous questions later.

Hearing a sound behind him, he turned to Dr Lee, who had rose and was trying to make his way to the door in spite of his injuries. He moved faster than anyone would have expected, dashing in front of the man before he could reach the door and drawing the gun he always carried in the mans face.

"I'm afraid I have to insist. You aren't leaving here for the foreseeable future."


	5. Infected

Thankies for the kind reviews of this fic to date peeps! Always pleased to know where I'm going right or wrong. I know the chapters for this fic are much shorter than those I normally write, no excise really excpet that this seems the way the fic wants to be written in so I went with it. This chapter is a little longer than the others. We're over half way through now and I've been having fun writing it, which is what it's all about isn't it? I'm pleased that you're all enjoying the ride too!

&&&&&&&&&&&&&

In spite of the labs they had spent much of their childhoods in and continued to attend occasionally for tests, the three turtles shared one of the blocks designed to be used by scientists or soldiers should their presence on the base for long periods be required. There was a shared main room, kitchen and bathroom, along with four mid-sized bedrooms. Each turtle had a room of their own, the spare used for storing junk. Don had wanted to turn the room into a computer work area, Raph had wanted it as a workout room but the space wasn't big enough to use it for both. Mike had eventually pointed out that there was both computer facilities and a gym in the base for their use and that they may as well store the things they didn't use often in there instead. Raph occasionally suspected that Mikey had been displaying some cunning there – most of the junk in there belonged to him, along with the books that Don refused to part with but rarely read. Only Raph didn't accumulate much in the way of possessions, nor was he sentimental about his belongings.

The evening of the disastrous test that Bishop had overseen, which none of the turtles had any idea had even happened, Raph wandered back to their quarters at about ten, having stopped off for a workout. He had fixed up his room so that he had a hammock rather than a bed, which could be taken down in the morning to make room for the swinging punch bag. Just because there was a gym there didn't mean he didn't sometimes want to just punch the thing without the hassle of dragging himself to the gym and doing a whole workout.

The main room was dark save for a dimmed lamp, the glow from the mute television and the meagre light from the computer monitor in the corner, that showed Mikey's profile as he browsed the Internet. Upon hearing Raph enter, he turned to the door and put a finger to his lips, indicating for quiet, then pointing to the prone figure on the couch.

Raph shook his head ruefully as he realised Donnie had fallen asleep in front of the television. "How long has he been out?"

"Couple hours," replied Mikey in a low voice. "He's been down at the lab since about eight. Something about the greys."

"Those stupid aliens?" Raph closed the door and wandered over to Mikey, leaning over to see what his brother was looking at. "How important can it be? They've waited this long."

"You know Donnie. He gets a project, little things like food and sleep go by the wayside. Check this out!"

"Those stupid joke websites? You got too much time on your hands bomb-boy. What's to eat?"

"I made tuna pasta, should be some left over if you wanna nuke it. Unless Don ate it all."

"Damn, I wish he'd stop eating outta the pan!"

"You do it all the time."

"Yeah, but only when I'm gonna finish the whole thing." Raph left Mikey to his jokes and dumped what was left of the pasta onto a plate, shoving it in to the microwave and setting it before going back into the living room and shaking Donnie's shoulder.

"Whuh? Leeme 'lone."

"Move your shell Don. Go to bed and sleep there."

"Uh?" Don blinked once or twice, focusing blearily on Raph. "Oh. I fall asleep on the couch?"

"Yup. Again."

Sitting up, Don yawned widely and rubbed his eyes. "Yeah, I guess I'm gonna go catch a few more hours. Night!"

"Night Don," said Raph absently, waiting for the turtle to close his door before throwing a cushion at Mikey. "You shouldn't let him sleep on the couch."

The cushion caught Mike on the shell and he turned to glare. "Hey, the dude needs his sleep."

"Yeah, in his own bed. You know what he's like when he gets like this. Nothing stops him. We should at least try to make sure he doesn't burn out."

"That's why I left him to sleep," said Mike reasonably.

Raph turned the sound back up on the TV and flipped channels for a fe minutes. "So how's the newbie coming along?"

"Who, Layla?" Mikey's voice was full of casual nonchalance and Raph rolled his eyes. Great. Mikey had a crush. "Um, she's doing OK. Better than the last guy."

"Yeah, the last guy didn't have an ass like that."

"I, uh, hadn't noticed."

"Michelangelo, you are a terrible liar."

"I hadn't!"

Raph sniggered and hopped channels again, finding an 80s action film on and turning his attention to it, waiting for the pasta to ping. Just another typical evening with the guys. Their life in the base wasn't the best, the most certain or what he would have chosen given the chance – but sometimes he could forget all the other bullshit and feel like part of a normal family. In the unlikely event of him leaving the base permanently, that would be the best part of the memories from there. Maybe the only good one.

&&&&&&&&&&&

Dr Lee paced, feeling nauseous. No one had touched him, not even to help him get to what would appear to be his home for the next few weeks at least. Bishop had basically forced him to walk here and enter the cell. At gunpoint.

Cell? Ha, that was too grand a word for it. A cell brought forth images of a door with a bullet-proof window, giving some semblance of privacy, even a transparent unit with sectioned off areas for him to sleep and shit in peace.

What he had been placed in was a cage. Concrete floor, raised cot, toilet off in a far corner in full view of anyone passing, bars comprising three of the four walls. Where they kept the experimental subjects. He had been put in with the mutants.

_Why?_

That question was simple enough. As a punishment. Bishop didn't really expect that the serum would have any effect on him but couldn't take risks. The cage left him unable to leave, negating the risk. But an isolation room wouldn't have showed him or the other scientists the price of fucking up.

The cells were side by side, separated by only the bars, but the cell between each of the mutants was always left empty as a security precaution. Lee was in the end one, beside him an empty cage, and beside that specimen 00582. Lee had been at the base only four years, but this specimen had been one of the several that pre-dated his arrival. It hadn't reacted to him in any way, merely sat in the far corner, staring at nothing. It was creepy.

Lee dropped heavily onto the cot and sighed, wincing slightly at the pain in his stomach. He was also sweating excessively and he blotted his hands on his lab coat. It had to be the situation he was in. It couldn't be a reaction to the serum, it couldn't be...

Could it?

_I have to get out of here!_

If the serum really _could_ be transmitted through skin contact as well as ingestion and injection, then surely he would be better off working on some kind of a cure for the serum, something to stop him changing the way the gecko had – or the mouse. The mouse hadn't changed immediately after drinking the serum, it had taken several hours. If he really was infected, then skin contact should take even longer. He could do something, he could work on a cure, help them to...

_Wait._

A thought occurred to him. No one had taken a sample of his blood. Surely if they were working on the cure, they would need his blood to run tests on. They needed to see how it was responding to his DNA and if they did have a cure, test it on the blood to check there was no adverse reaction. Even if it was a race against time, that was a must.

_They're not working on a cure. If you live, you live. If you mutate – well, so much the better. Bishop's first human test._

Lee wrapped his arms around his stomach and leant forward. This couldn't be happening to him. He had to get _out _of here!

Not changing position, he touched his fingers to the lump in his lab coat pocket, so small it was practically unnoticeable. As Bishop snarled at his co-workers, Lee had used the distraction to snatch a small vial of the serum and slip it into his pocket, not sure what was going to happen but having some dim thought of insurance at the back of his mind.

Much use it would do him. He may be able to get out of the cell using it – but he would have to ingest it himself, turn into a mindless mutant. There was a chance he would do so anyway, but there was an equally good chance that he wouldn't, that it was just the stress that was making him feel so awful. That and the fact he really needed to take a dump and there was no way he was doing _that_ in front of the cameras that covered the room. What if one of his colleagues walked in, or Bishop? The embarrassment, the _shame_ of being watched like some animal in a zoo, knowing they were laughing at him...

He clenched his fists. He would get out of here somehow. And get his revenge on them all.

_Animal..._

He turned his head slowly to the right. In the cage beyond the one beside him was the mutant 00582. His interactions with the specimen may have been sparodic but he knew the thing was capable of some stilted speech and of following instructions.

It was also stubborn, occasionally wilful, capable of lashing out violently should it be pushed too far. Still, Lee didn't plan to push it. His hastily thought up scheme was risky, but he knew he couldn't remain in this cell for much longer. He hated the feeling of being stared at, treated like some kind of freak just because he had been knocked into some experimental serum. All he needed was a distraction. Maybe then he could reach through the bars as scientists and agents filled the room, steal some keys and free himself in the bedlam. A plan born of desperation, but better than waiting, wondering and being afraid.

He snagged the vial with as little movement as he could manage, remaining doubled over from the waist to further disguise the movement, then leant down as if to scratch his foot, putting the vial on the floor behind his heel. Had those monitoring the cameras noticed anything? He spent ten minutes waiting to see if anyone would enter and ask him what he had in the cell with him, but no one entered.

Now for the tricky part.

He checked his watch. Close to ten at night. With any luck, those watching the camera images would be bored, unobservant, whatever marginal interest his presence had engendered gone when he failed to flip out. They would have half an eye on him, the rest of their attention on their notes or a paperback or a magazine. And that was if there were any scientists in the room. He doubted that the special agents that typically watched would even have that much interest in his predicament.

There was a gap beneath the horizontal bar at the bottom of the cage. The danger was if it hit one of the vertical bars and rebounded, or if he didn't send it far enough and it ended up in the middle of the cage between him and the freak. Of course, if those watching picked up anything suspicious in what he did next, he would be well and truly fucked anyway.

He stole a look toward the mutants cage and then stared at the floor. Gathering all of his courage, he put the side of his shoe to the vial and _pushed_ rather than kicked, refraining from staring after it and drawing attention to himself. Instead he rocked himself slightly, trying to watch without moving his head too much. The vial skittered through the bars without touching the bars...

And came to a stop just outside the mutants cage.

Biting on his lower lip in frustration, Lee waited another five minutes, telling himself not to panic. In the meantime, the pain in his guts intensified. His skin felt like it was trying to crawl from his bones and he tried to hide how he felt. Right now, he didn't want anyone to see that he was in any kind of discomfort. If they hadn't already.

A cramp passed through him and he got to his feet, knowing he would be being watched now but hoping he could get away with it if he didn't behave suspiciously. He went to the bars separating him from the next cell and the mutant beyond, hoping to get its attention, leaning on the bars as if he were merely observing the creature.

For a moment, the thing didn't move, didn't even seem to see him. Then it raised its head and met the doctors stare with one of its own.

Lee kept its gaze for a moment and then deliberately looked to the vial. The mutant glanced to what he was staring at and then looked back at the doctor.

"Take it, you ugly fucker," muttered Lee through clenched teeth, trying to smile at the mutant and managing only a grimace. "Pick it up, pick it up!"

The creature reached its foot between the bars, barely needing to stretch, grabbing the vial between its toes. Lee winced, expecting the fragile container to break, but the thing was surprisingly dexterous, retrieving the vial without breaking it. It picked up the vial with its hand as soon as it was in the cell, eying it curiously.

"Don't be so obvious, you freak!" Suddenly Lee was ice cold, shivering, his teeth chattering. "Just drink it, don't fucking stare at it..."

And then the effort of keeping himself upright was too much and he dropped to his knees, crawling towards the toilet, a part of him cringing in embarrassment, most of him in too much pain and misery to care. He dry-heaved into the bowl, pulling himself up and dropping his pants immediately after. Nothing. Yet the pain in his gut intensified further and he doubled over, tears making his vision shimmer.

_I don't deserve this, I'm gonna get you Bishop you fucking cocksucker, I didn't do anything to deserve this..._

When he finally raised his head, he barely cared that the mutant had uncapped the vial and was sniffing the contents. All he wanted to do was go back to his cot and sleep for a couple of years.

&&&&&&&&&

"Hey, check out the doc!"

The agents in the observation room glanced at the monitor and sniggered as the man dropped his pants and sat on the toilet, bowing his head and clenching his teeth.

"Only ten fifteen," said the second agent, temporarily putting down his cards. "You owe me twenty bucks."

"Ah crap," muttered the first, fishing a crumpled note from his pocket and shoving it at his colleague. "I thought he'd hold out 'til at least midnight."

"Not so fucking snooty now, huh big-shot?" The second agent smirked at the monitor, gloating, before turning back to the game. "How much more money am I gonna take off ya tonight?"

Neither of them paid the mutants in the cells a second thought.

&&&&&&&&&

_It had been a long time. He didn't know how long. There was no way of guessing how much time had passed and he hadn't the vocabulary to logically think through the concept, but he was aware that he had changed. He had grown taller, his body was different than it had been. He was different. But things around him never changed. _

_Not until tonight. The man who sometimes looked at him, wrote notes and took his blood was in a cell much like his own. He didn't know why and didn't dwell on it as strange – but it hadn't happened before and he was slightly confused._

_And then the man dropped something on the floor in front of him and whispered at him to pick it up. Again unusual, but he did it anyway. Some things just weren't worth fighting over. The man was able to come and go as he pleased (or so he thought) and when he didn't do as they wanted him to, there was PUNISHMENT. PUNISHMENT was bad and it hurt. And PUNISHMENT came when he didn't do what they wanted. _

_But then the man looked sick and went to use the toilet. 00582 didn't know what he was supposed to do with the glass container he had picked up, but he had seen things like this before. Usually the men would put the contents into a syringe and put the syringe in his arm. Usually it made him sleepy. Right now, he wouldn't mind being asleep. There wasn't much to do once the men all left and the one that was still there seemed pretty ill. Maybe he was going to die, like 10225 had. 10225 had started to be sick just like the man, but the sick had been red and then he had fallen over. _

_00582 took the top off the vial and sniffed the contents. It didn't smell like anything, but neither did most of the drinks they gave him. And he was bored and wide awake. Maybe it would help him to sleep._

_So he drank it._

_Discarding the vial in a corner, he went over to his cot and lay down, fully expecting to be asleep within a few minutes. But sleep didn't come. After a while he opened his eyes and stared into the next cell. He could see the man, finished on the toilet and lying down on his own cot. He looked sick. _

_Maybe whatever was wrong with the man was catching, because within two hours 00582 was feeling pretty sick himself. He was too hot, shivering, His stomach rolled uneasily and his head felt heavy, even moving it a little hurt. The dim lights hurt his eyes. As soon as he threw off his itchy blanket, he became cold. As soon as he covered himself, he became too hot. _

_He groaned quietly. He didn't know what was happening to him, but he wanted it to go away. There was no way of getting any attention unless he got up and started shouting, and he didn't feel well enough to do so. The men didn't want him disturbing them just because he was hungry or bored._

_The men were mean. _

_Dimly, he could recall some of the tests they did. The one where his food had shocked him was the worst. He'd reach for his bowl and BAM! A shock that raced up his arm and hurt him bad. Soon he had been afraid of touching the food. But it was either learn how to get it without the shock or starve. He had figured out a way – but it had taken nearly a week. There were other tests too, none as painful or tortuous as that one but bad enough. _

_"See how smart it really is," one of the men had said during the shock tests. Agent Bishop. He had been part of the tests for as long as 00582 could remember and he was the worst of them all. Sometimes he would smile during the tests, gloating, as if he knew something that the mutant did not._

_And then there were the insults. Ugly fucker was one of the mild ones. Some of them were really nasty and he could tell they meant every word. _

_Agent Bishop sometimes talked to him, when there was no one else listening. Not that he said a great deal and when he did, the words were full of malice. One of the things he had told 00582 was that without him, none of the other mutants would even exist. They would be someone's pets. That made him really unhappy – knowing that without him, they might still be normal and not stuck in this place with those men._

_The more he thought, the angrier he got and the angrier he got, the worse he felt. It wasn't like him to get so angry – it did no good. All it did was lead to PUNISHMENT. But maybe whatever was wrong with him was making him feel this way. It didn't matter how mad he was anyway. There was little he could do about it._

_He managed to fall into an uncomfortable doze, only to be awoken what seemed like only minutes later by a shriek. He raised his head, wincing at the pain, and looked into the cell beside his. In the other cells, the mutants that had been woken were making enough noise of their own, most of it in fear._

_The man had changed. _

_When 00582 last looked at him, he had been laid on a cot and whimpering quietly. Now he was on his feet, staggering toward the bars, seeming at least a foot taller. His lab coat tore as his muscles grew and his face seemed almost to be – melting?_

_But the worst part was the way he screamed._

_The noise was deafening. The other mutants joined in the cacophony, save for 00582, who felt too damn sick. The noise hurt his head and he couldn't comprehend what he was seeing. _

_Two agents ran into the room and skidded to a halt, gaping at the scene. One of them took out a radio and started shouting into it, his voice barely audible over the noise of the mutants and the man. They didn't seem afraid though, just stunned. Maybe they thought the bars would hold him._

_The former man grabbed two of the bars and wrenched, snapping them and throwing them aside. Then he was out, making his way to the agents._

_"Cocksuckerrrrrrrrs..."_

_The agent with the radio just stared, the other made for his gun but handled it too slowly and clumsily. The creature that had once been Lee reached out with amazing speed and grabbed them both by the heads, slamming them together with lethal force. There was a crunching sound audible even over all the noise and the heads seemed to just – cave in. Lee tossed the bodies aside, where they lay bleeding. _

_00582 couldn't believe it._

_The other mutants were going insane, throwing themselves against the bars of their own cells, some cowering and screaming. 00582 merely watched. He felt strange. Nauseous, cold, like something was happening inside him..._

_More agents arrived, trying to stop the man. Lee shrieked again as a bullet tore open his arm, stamping toward the agents and scattering them like bowling pins. The whole room was a mad, loud, chaotic scene, none of the agents bothering even a little about the mutants that screamed and yelled from their cells. Certainly not about the mutant that had remained silent throughout the whole thing._

_Anger overtook 00582 once again as he saw a stray bullet miss the former man and hit 20019 in the leg. She went down, howling in pain. Others buried themselves in to walls and the wise mutants took cover, hiding where they could. The man reached out to one of the agents and grabbed the arm, pulling it right out of the socket – but he was being forced into retreat by the greater number of heavily armed agents. All that stopped them really was the limited space, meaning that not all of them could enter the room._

_00582 glanced down at his arm and stiffened. It had formerly been just – well, his arm. Green, thin, tri-fingered, marked from years of blood samples and injections. But now it was different. The scrawny muscles were beginning to bulk up, colour darkening, seemingly lengthening. Even as he looked, he could see it changing. _

_Something was happening to him. And he was pissed about it. Pissed about what was happening out there. Pissed about his whole shitty life to date. _

_But at least he didn't feel ill any more. Just mad. _

_Slowly, he got to his feet, knowing as he did so that something was different. His tread was heavier, he felt like he was taking up more space. And it was getting hard to think. All he knew was that he was angry and some one had to pay._

_He reached out for the bars._


	6. Going To Ground

My thanks as always to those who read and reviewed! And as to all the questions about 00582... they will be answered. Eventually. Yes, I'm very mean!

_&&&&&&&&&&&&&&_

The alarms woke them up at 3-07 am.

Raphael sat bolt upright, immediately awake, reaching out for the gun he always kept by the side of the hammock. For a moment the bed swung alarmingly, but he had long since got used to not falling out and shifted his weight to stabilised it. The alarms were those which alerted the entire base to a major incident. Not good.

He leapt out of the hammock and raced for the door, almost colliding with Michelangelo as he ran through. Mikey was unarmed, but going for the gun he kept in the living room.

"What's going on?" asked Donatello blearily, emerging from his own room, more asleep than awake.

"No idea," said Raph tersely, going for another gun and handing it to the scientist. Donnie might have spent more time over the last few years in a lab rather than at the shooting range but he was still a damn good shot and unlikely to lose his head when trouble struck. And although Mikey preferred to teach others rather than go out in the field himself, he too was a good operative.

The three exited the room into the corridor, guns at the ready should they encounter whatever the emergency was. The alarms were still blaring, but Raph was used to working under such conditions and paid them no mind, although he could see Don and Mikey scowling at the noise. There were two agents up ahead of them, running in the direction of the labs and Raph decided it would be a good idea to follow them. If that was where the others were heading, no doubt that was where the disturbance was originating from.

He went up ahead, Donnie behind him and Mikey bringing up the rear. The corridor turned at a 90 degree angle and Raph raised his gun, ready to shoot should he turn and encounter something...

And widened his eyes as one of the agents he had been following flew past him and hit the wall, jawbone hanging at an odd angle, nose pulverised. Some one had to have hit the guy with enormous force to cause those kinds of injuries.

"Holy _shit_," muttered Mikey.

Raph dived around the corner, crouching low to make himself less of a target, gun gripped tightly in both hands. It took him less than a second to scan the corridor and lock on to the target. It was kinda hard to miss.

The thing had to be at least eight feet tall, wearing the tattered remnants of a white coat. Bony growths protruded from its heavily muscled arms and although its facial features were humanoid in appearance, the jaw was wide and misshapen, the face elongated, eyes small and piggy in the folds of flesh surrounding them. Crazily, Raph found himself recalling watching reruns of 'The Incredible Hulk' with Mikey and Donnie when they were no more than six or seven, giggling as they wondered how his pants had stayed on.

The thing locked eyes with Raphael.

At the same time, the alarms shut off and plunged the corridor into a silence almost as deafening as the sirens had been.

Raph opened fire.

His bullets found their mark, hitting the creature in the torso. A moment later he became aware of someone else shooting – Mikey and Don. He was absurdly grateful that they were by his side right then, even if he had already hit the thing.

It took only seconds before he realised why the thing had eluded the agents before them. Almost every bullet found its mark and the creature screamed piercingly, pain evident – but it stayed upright, taking a few shambling steps toward them.

_What is that thing, armour-plated or something?_

"Aim for the head!" he yelled, promptly taking his own advice. It was a more difficult target, although the face was long it was also narrow, the same width as a human head. But Raph was an expert marksman even under stress and Mikey and Don were no slouches themselves. One bullet tore a chunk from the side of its head. Another put out an eye, a gout of blood and white goo spilling down its cheek like explosive tears. Still another put a good sized hole in its cheek, exposing jagged rows of teeth.

Under the barrage, the creature sank to its knees, howling piteously. The three turtles stopped shooting and regarded it for a moment.

"What _is_ that thing?" asked Mikey, rubbing his mouth nervously.

"Some kind of mutant, at a guess," replied Donnie. "But... that kind of mutation can't be natural. It's entire body seems to have undergone some kind of radical transformation, probably very rapidly judging by the unstable way it moved and the obvious..."

"I don't care if it's a mutant, one of Bishop's damned aliens or the new king of the world," snarled Raph, approaching the creature and leveling his gun at it. "It's going down."

"No."

Bishop rounded the corner and stared at them, obviously having stayed out of the creatures way until it had been dealt with. "I want it taken back to the labs for testing. We have to know what caused this reaction."

"Agent Bishop, you can't!" Donnie gestured agitatedly with his hands. "You can hear it – it's in pain. We shot it full of holes – you _can't _keep it alive like this!"

"I think you have more important things to be concerned about," replied Bishop, seemingly flustered for the first time in living memory. "There's another one."

"No way!" Raph glared at Bishop angrily. "What's going on?"

"This one - " he gestured to the creature that still writhed and whimpered as thick viscous blood poured out of it – "Was a scientist who got careless with his experiments. Infected himself and a test subject. Everything was under control until the test subject broke free and they both got out of the labs. Think we can find it and contain it before any more of my agents die Raphael?"

Raphael narrowed his eyes. "If it's anything like this one, it probably left a trail a mile wide. There's cameras all over this place. Any word on where it is?"

Bishop grabbed his radio and barked into it. "Where's the other creature?"

There was a burst of static disrupting the response. _"... left the building sir! It's heading for the gen..."_

Bishop looked nauseous and Raph could well imagine why. The base had two stories above the ground and extended deep beneath the ground, where they currently were. Outside, it made for an easier target but there was more chance of it leaving the facility before they contained it and more chance of it being seen.

"Come on guys," he said to his brothers.

"But – what about him?" asked Don, indicating to the creature bleeding out on the floor.

"Leave it." Bishop's voice held no room for argument.

Raph and Bishop's eyes met for a moment. Bishop might have been more flustered than Raph had ever seen him, but he had no doubt that this would mean they could overrule the agent. Should they put the poor, screaming thing out of its misery, Bishop would make sure they regretted it. They might be allowed to carry weapons and act as operatives, but it was Bishop running the show and he could have them locked up in a second. All of them.

"Let's just go after the other one," Raph snapped, heading for the elevator.

Outside, the facility was as bright as day, floodlights illuminating the whole area. There were other agents in the area, milling around quietly with their guns pointing at the floor but ready to be raised at a seconds notice, just as the turtles own weapons were held.

"I don't see it," hissed Mikey.

"From what I heard on Bishop's radio, I'd think it was near the generator," said Donnie.

"Around the back then," said Raph grimly. Shit, this whole thing was a mess from start to end. There was a _procedure_ for these situations and rather than follow it, everyone had panicked. The highly trained operatives were running around like headless chickens, chasing a monster that had apparently already been the cause of the deaths of several agents.

As they headed for the generator, Bishop's voice radiated from the tannoys around the facility. "This is Agent Bishop – it's heading for the generator! Stop it!"

_At least he's finally getting it together,_ thought Raph. It was unnerving to see Bishop caught completely off guard. He thought that bastard planned for every possibility.

The three turtles had been moving cautiously, but several of the other agents paid caution no heed, rushing for the generator, overtaking them. Raph suppressed a groan. If the damn creature was as tough as the first had been, warning it they were approaching wasn't doing them any favours.

There was a roar from the direction of the generator, followed by a crash. A couple of gunshots fired, then another crash. Throwing caution to the wind, Raph raced to the source of the noise, Don and Mikey hot on his heels – then paused as he saw the scene. The backup generator was located in a concrete building at the rear of the facility, nearby were other storage buildings. One of the other buildings was missing the door, but that wasn't what drew his attention. There were two bodies lying on the floor outside the generator building, mangled but mostly whole. And still more agents approaching the building, trying to gain entry, determined to shoot hole in the creature. But Raph knew it wouldn't be that easy. Hell, the one they had shot in the head was still alive, if only barely, after encountering not only the three of them but no doubt other groups of agents who had tried to do as much damage. Guns weren't going to help them much. They needed another plan.

"Back off!" he shouted to the other agents, the four nearest the generator building where he had to assume the other creature was, about to dart through the door. "For crying out loud, get away from there!"

Either they didn't hear him or chose to ignore him. Whichever it was made no difference. The first ducked into the building, in much the same way that Raphael had when facing the first creature, keeping low to make himself less of a target, vanishing into the gloom of the generator room. But the room offered a lot less room to back up then the corridor on the base did. There were three rapid shots, followed by a loud smashing sound.

"Shit fire and save matches!" Raph cursed and approached the small building, noting the other three agents piling in, presumably believing in safety in numbers. The damn room was so small, they'd be more likely to shoot each other.

Donnie was intent on whatever was going on in the generator room, gun held out in front of him, concentrating fiercely. Mikey followed him, but was suddenly distracted at the sensation of his bare feet standing in something damp. At the same time, he became aware of a familiar scent in his nostrils, something he worked around every day.

Gasoline.

He glanced over to the building beside the generator room, the one with the door missing. He had no idea what had happened before they arrived, but it seemed as if some of the liquid they kept in there to refuel their vehicles had been spilled. Normally perfectly safe, in a concrete building. But with the stuff leaking out of the door and a lot of shooting going on in a room that supplied the electricity for the base...

He grabbed Donnie by the shell, pulling him backward, ignoring his startled protests. Then he grabbed Raph's wrist and pulled him away from the shed.

Raph tried to snatch his wrist away, hearing the sound of shots being fired in the building and a roar that sounded more angry than pained. "Mike, what the hell are you _doing_?"

"There's gasoline all over the place!" shouted Mikey.

Comprehension immediately dawned on Donnie's face as the scientist glanced around the floor. "Shit, _MOVE_!"

"Everyone, GET AWAY!" yelled Raph at the nearby agents, not following the same line of reasoning as his brothers but knowing that gasoline equalled fire.

The three turtles fled from the building, dimly aware of more gunfire, another inhuman shriek of rage...

And then a loud smash, followed by another volley of gunfire and a loud electrical buzzing.

The floodlights went out, plunging the entire facility into blackness. But only for a moment. A second later, a spark from the generator where a stray bullet had hit it started a small fire in the building. Containable... until flaming debris blew outside to where the trail of gasoline had spilled. It ignited, the flames racing down the trail and into the building where the fuel for the many vehicles attached to the base.

Raphael reflected later on that it was lucky the fuel for the helicopters was kept elsewhere, otherwise it was possible the entire base and all its occupants would have been blown sky high. As it was, too many agents hesitated when he yelled his warning, too few followed the example of the three turtles.

And the turtles were still too close.

There was an explosion so loud that Raph's ears gave in under the pressure, rendering the next few minutes curiously muted. The force of the blast knocked him off his feet and threw him into the wall of the main facility, his shell catching most of the impact and narrowly missing smacking Mikey in the face.

Something hit the wall beside him. It was an arm, severed at just above the elbow. With clinical detachment, Raph noted the coating of thick black hair and the chunky gold watch that denoted it had once been attached to a man.

Instinctively, he put his arms over his head to protect it, turning so his shell was toward the building, dimly aware that Mikey was doing the same. He glanced up, looking for Donnie and seeing his brother slightly further away from them, blood dripping down the side of his head from what looked like a minor but messy cut, trying to protect his own head.

For long moments, Raphael stayed in the same position, having trouble following what was going on with his muted hearing and his defensive posture. Then he felt a hand on his arm and turning, saw Mikey mouthing something at him, wide eyed and filthy.

Guessing it was about his physical state, he nodded, not even trying to give a reassuring smile but taking a second to squeeze his brothers hand, something he couldn't remember doing since they were little kids, when Mikey hated the blood samples being taken and getting upset whenever they had to. "I'm OK Mike," he said wearily, his voice sounding weird inside his own head and wondering if any of his brothers were suffering from the same thing. "You?"

Mikey nodded and Raph turned his head to the other side, looking for Donnie again. "Donnie! You doing OK?"

Don gave the universal gesture of the thumbs-up, not looking very convincing and making no move toward them.

Wondering if Don was about to succumb to shock, Raph forced himself to his knees, stopping in shock as he gazed upon the inferno.

The building had literally been blown to pieces, flaming debris still falling to the ground. Chunks of concrete had been half-buried in the ground such was the force with which they had been propelled. The blaze was still burning out of control, beginning to spread.

Worse, there were body parts strewn across the area. Those too close had been hit by pieces of the building, slicing into skin, bludgeoning the men and women as they fled. The lucky ones had been killed instantly, crushed by falling concrete or incinerated by their closeness to the explosion.

The unlucky ones were still alive.

Some of the ones almost out of range of the blast had been struck by debris, not with enough force to be lethal but certainly enough to do major damage. One woman lay on the floor in front of them, her limbs twitching feebly as she clasped her hands to a wound in her stomach that was leaking to much blood. Another stood, one hand trying to support an arm that was almost severed.

But it was those behind them that made Raph's blood run cold.

People on fire, some running and screaming in agony, others stumbling as their life melted away from them. Those who managed to hold panic at bay long enough to drop to the floor and roll around to smother the flames might have saved their lives but were now covered in terrible burns. Others had no rational thought left and made no attempt to quell the flames that consumed them, driven crazed by pain.

And then a scream so piercing that it made its way through Raph's muted hearing, making him wince as it drilled into his skull. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mikey clap his hands to the sides of his head to block out the noise.

The generator building had been close enough to where the fuel was stored to have one of the walls crumble as if it were paper, the small fire that had begun with the generator added to by the fire in the next building. It blazed less fiercely than the spot where the fuel store had been but still deadly.

Something came through the door.

Raph stared at it, transfixed. The – thing – had to be over seven feet tall, incredibly bulky, its arms out of proportion to the rest of its body hanging almost to its knees, walking on two legs but not even remotely human, or so it seemed to the horrified turtle.

And it was on fire, flamed dancing up one of its arms, beginning to sear the skin of its body.

For what seemed an eternity, Raphael gazed at it as it as it screamed its pain, slowly and deliberately walking away from the fire...

And then reality came crashing back in as more people came running to the scene of the explosion, some armed with foam extinguishers which they sprayed on the people who were alight, some of the rescuers shouting orders that were totally ignored. One man, wild eyed with the fear of being responsible for rescuing others, aimed his extinguisher at the first blazing figure he saw, not realising that the bulk and size of the thing meant that it wasn't one of the agents, dousing it in fire-retardant foam.

The creature reached out and snatched the extinguisher, coated in white mess, charred down one side of its body and mad as hell. It slammed the heavy metal cannister against the head of the panicked agent, crushing the skull, knocking him down.

In the chaos, the monster walked into the shadows and became one with the night.

_What did you do Bishop,_ thought Raph, not knowing what the hell he had just witnessed, still frozen to the spot. _What the fuck did you DO?_

And then Donnie scrambled to his feet, the first to break his paralysis, running to the scene and beginning to tend to the injured. All over the area, agents lay wounded or dead, others in shock, a very few trying to gain control of the blazing buildings before it could spread any further. Those who were helping the injured seemed in as much shock as those caught in the blast and were too often finding themselves with wounded who were never going to recover.

Donnie checked on the man whose skull had been crushed by the – whatever it was – and shook his head, not remaining with the corpse but heading to another person. Raph was suddenly angry with himself for not moving sooner, not putting the creature down when he had a chance.

"Raph..." Mikey's voice was low and scared. "What _was_ that thing?"

"I dunno Mike," said Raph, wondering if his own shock showed in his tone. "But it just took out half the agents on the base."

"So – did it plan this whole thing?"

"I don't think so. I think it was pure chance – and those assholes who went in blasting at it busted the generator." Raph frowned, thinking it was probably bad form to call the deceased assholes. "But it has to be stopped. It tore right through those agents. And I let it get away!"

"There was nothing else you could have done bro." Mikey rested a hand on Raph's shell, but the turtle was too angry to be much comforted.

"There's something I can do now." Raphael belatedly realised his gun was no where in sight. He must have dropped it in the explosion. It barely mattered. There were other weapons on the base, other guns. And they were less than three miles from a nearby town. If the creature managed to get that far before they stopped it...

"I'm going after it. Before it can do any more damage. And I'm putting it out of its misery."


	7. Shadow Of The Night

My thanks as always to those who read and reviewed the last chapter! There's not long to go now - one more chapter after this one and a short epilogue. And apologies for the cliffie!_  
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Bishop was granite faced as he drove the black SUV from the base, followed by several other such vehicles. They just had to hope they found 00582 before the fuel ran dry. It wasn't like they had any more.

The radio the teams were using to communicate spat static, the occasional query as to whether or not there was any progress in the hunt. Every one came back negative.

Three helicopters had been dispatched to search for the mutant, their powerful searchlights scanning the area. There were several teams on foot, others driving. Anyone who cared to pay attention had to realise that something was amiss with the military base, but Bishop decided that he would have to think about that later. The priority was to contain the threat, while it still could be contained. As things were, he could explain away the awkward situation. But if that thing managed to be seen by civilians, or worse, to maim or kill them – that was going to be a problem.

"_Agent Bishop sir... sighted! Mutant sighted!... sewer runoff... co-ordinates now."_

The on-board computer began bleeping and Bishop smirked. Finally, they had the damn thing. It was tough, but it wasn't indestructible and now they could contain it somehow. It might take a ton of tranquillisers but they would recapture it. The serum that Lee had come up with before his unfortunate accident had far reaching implications and he wanted further studies on the creatures they had before they started on any more subjects.

It was a shame that Lee had succumbed to the serum, but his work was no doubt on the lab computers. And 00582 had reached the end of its usefulness anyway. No great loss.

Of course, he reflected grimly as he transmitted the co-ordinates to the other agents, the fact that the mission was running with less than a third of the men he would like was a hindrance. But there had been too many casualties in the explosion at the base, still more because they had been so unprepared against the creatures and the pair had been able to take them easily. That mistake would not happen again. He had convened all the available agents, including those who were not typically sent out in the field but had some experience. They needed everyone they could get.

Arriving at the location, he took in the scene and nodded in satisfaction. There was a cliff, its sheer face meaning the mutant had not been able to get any further on land without taking a major detour. But set in the cliff face was a large circular grate, maybe six feet in diameter, letting rain water and other runoff from the sewers drain out when the system was overflowed. The grate had been ripped off, leaving the tunnel leading down into the sewers accessible, where the mutant was no doubt still wandering, lost and not easily able to find another exit. Bishop doubted it would be smart enough to use a manhole and too large for the many smaller gratings the system boasted. It would be a long time before it got to an exit similar to this one.

Meaning it was trapped and could be captured with ease.

But to do so would require stealth and skill rather than an all-out assault.

More SUV's pulled up, more agents piling out. Among them were the three turtles, looking ready for battle, Donatello sporting a bandage on his head and his two brothers with assorted cuts and bruises. Bishop paused for a moment, wondering if it was a good idea to send those them after 00582... but what harm could it do?

"I want three teams down there," he said authoritatively. "Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, you're Team A. King, Crichton, Brite, you're Team B. Elton, Pratchett, Harris, you're Team C. Split up, locate the target and try to drive it this way. Incapacitate it, but _do not_ neutralise it unless there is no choice. We want it alive people."

Mikey spotted Layla among the agents nodding their understanding – of course, she was the 'Harris' that he had mentioned. For a second Mike debated questioning the wisdom of sending a rookie into the tunnel, no matter how well she had done in basic training, then bit his tongue. There would be no thanks from her, Bishop would probably ignore him anyway and he would have to deal with months and months of jibes from the rest of the base. Better to remain silent and concentrate on containing the creature before she had to put herself at risk.

Raphael didn't seem happy about the situation, but motioned for his brothers to follow him. They had their usual array of weapons, all of them refusing to go in unarmed after the disaster at the base. Mikey had snatched up some of his own personal playthings before they left on the mission, an array of explosives, arguing it was better to have them and not need them than the other way around – and as it turned out, they could come in useful for sealing off tunnels and forcing the creature in the direction they wanted. Donatello had given in to his scientific curiosity, snagging items he could use to collect samples as well as his field medical kit. All the agents were armed with infra-red goggles and tranquilliser guns and all of them had taken the time before leaving to dress in black combats and T-shirts, Kevlar vests and heavy boots. They were prepared for just about anything. Or so they hoped.

Raph knew that once inside, there would be a number of routes to follow and there the three teams would split up. It made sense for the three turtles to stick together – they were used to working together and knew each others strengths and weaknesses – but he had no idea how well the other teams would work together and at least one of them was a rookie, the girl that Mikey had been working with. But they had no other choice. They had to work with the people they had.

Team A, the turtles, entered the tunnel first, Raph in the lead, immediately followed by Teams B and C. Almost right away the tunnel split into two, a mid-sized tunnel on the left, a larger one on the right.

"Teams B and C, take the right, we'll hang left," said Raph in a low voice. He chose the uneven split for a reason – it was more likely that the larger tunnel would fork off again further along the path and then the two teams could split up to search them. But maybe the creature hadn't got very far and then either there would be more people to face it – or it would be up against the turtles.

After the scene at the base, none of them were feeling especially merciful.

For half an hour they trailed further into the tunnels, infra-red goggles in place, searching for the creature. There were several places large enough for it to hide but they checked all of them and there was no sign of it. Occasionally they checked in with the other teams and with Bishop above ground, but none of them had sighted it either.

"Man, maybe it didn't come in here," said Mikey eventually, discouraged. "Maybe it just pulled off the grate and went somewhere else."

"It was wide open out there," pointed out Raph. "The copters would have seen it if it were anywhere else. It has to have come down here."

"And its instinct would have been to hide," added Don. "Any animal fights when it's trapped in a corner, like this thing was, but I doubt it'd want to risk being shot at and set on fire again."

Raph shot Don a look. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about this creature that you're not telling us would you? Like how it came to be stomping around the base?"

"Raph!" Don scowled at his brother. "If I'd had _anything_ to do with it – which I _didn't_ – I would have made sure it was contained properly. And I sure as _hell_ wouldn't have let one of the scientists come into contact with it."

"I know, I know." Raph sighed irritably. "But it has to have something to do with whatever the labs are working on down there. And you're connected to the labs – heard anything at all that might be connected to this thing? Anything at all?"

"Not really," replied Don hesitantly. "But one thing did occur to me. This synthetic mutation had to come from somewhere. What we saw of Lee, he had improved resistance to physical trauma and he'd grown, increased mass – I think there's a couple of things that might have caused it and both of them are linked to me. I was one of the team working on the greys and Bishop took a sample from the one we managed to regenerate less than a week ago. Entirely possible that Lee's team were working on it too, he wasn't working with us. Aden there's another thing..."

Mikey frowned as Don trailed off. "What?"

"When we three were mutated, we were exposed to something that made us larger, stronger, more resistant than humans." Don's voice was reluctant. "Over the years, there's been a lot of blood samples taken from us and it'd be naive to think that no one's tried to replicate what was used to make us what we are. It's in our systems and it wouldn't be impossible to isolate it."

Raph tried to split his attention between the tunnel and his brothers words. "But we never went insane and started ripping people up."

"We started of life as reptiles, not humans, not to mention we were infants. Might make a difference. And what we were exposed to isn't exactly the same as what they would have managed to synthesise. It's only a possibility."

"One that I don't like," growled Raph. "I _don't_ like being used as a guinea pig!"

Mikey snorted. "We've known for years that they were trying to find out why we are like we are, or why the tests? I mean, I try not to think about it too much, but what Donnie said isn't that far fetched."

Raph shrugged. "We can figure out the whys and hows when we get that thing contained and get back to the base. What's left of the base. Can we just concentrate on the matter at hand?"

They walked on a little further – and the tunnel abruptly split into four. Mikey rolled his eyes. "Oh, this is _great_."

"The old turtle luck running true to form," muttered Raph, wishing vaguely that there were four of them. He checked out the tunnels, briefly raising his infra red goggles and turning on his torch. The tunnel on the far right seemed to be the least likely candidate, large enough for them to walk through without ducking, but not the creature they had seen at the base. There were rusting pipes running overhead and cobwebs that looked like they hadn't been disturbed in a long time.

There was only one option, much as he disliked the idea. "We'll have to split up. Ignore this tunnel for now, Don you take the one on the left, Mikey, you take the right. I'll go down the middle."

"Got it," said Don.

"Yeah," said Mikey without enthusiasm, no doubt thinking of the many horror films he watched and the terrible repercussions of the protagonists splitting up. Still, there wasn't much choice.

For his part, Raph had chosen to go down the tunnel he thought most likely to lead to the creature. It didn't seem capable of sophisticated decisions and was more likely to continue in a straight line, if they were heated in the right direction at all.

"Keep in radio contact at all times," he said sternly. "Neither of you is to engage it unless you have to. You see it, call for backup and stay out of sight."

Raph headed down the centre tunnel, replacing the goggles over his eyes and turning off the torch. The creature was to get no warning of their impending arrival if they could help it and that meant no light, just what could they could see through the infra red. But there was little to see, save for the occasional rat scampering from the intruder in their typically quiet lair. He didn't want to check the walls and further than he had to – there might be bugs and if there was one thing he hated, it was bugs.

And then the sound of distant gunfire reached him and his head shot up, looking in the direction it seemed to come from . The tunnels made the sounds echo, but he thought it was louder to his right...

_Shit! Mikey!_

He grabbed for his radio. "Mikey! Mikey, what's happening?"

_"...not me shoot..."_ came back the response. _"...other team must ha... see what's happening!"_

"Mikey, no! Wait! Ah, shit." Raph shoved the radio into his belt and turned to race back to the junction, hoping to cut Mikey off at the pass. But Mikey was fast and Raph exited his tunnel just in time to see his brother vanish from sight, going down the tunnel that Raph had dismissed as the least likely option. It still struck him as being improbable that the creature had gone that way – but the gunfire sounded louder down there and maybe it led to the others. It headed in that general direction after all.

"Dammit!"

Donnie raced out of his own tunnel. "What the hell..."

"Mikey's gone after the other teams," growled Raph, already heading after the erstwhile turtle.

Don ran after him. "Didn't he learn anything from what happened at the base?"

"Sure he did," replied Raph. "But it's not gonna stop him. You know what he's like."

Together they raced down the fourth tunnel, but they had already lost Mikey somewhere up ahead. Raph hoped that they could catch up to him – fast as Mikey was, endurance wasn't his strong point. Whether or not they could catch up to him before he ran into trouble was another matter.

Raph and Don came to another fork in the tunnel and hesitated, unsure of which way to go. It should have been a matter of following the sound of weapons – but in the time it had taken the pair to get to this point, the gunfire had ceased. That could mean that the creature had been contained. Or it could mean that there was no one left to fire the guns. That there had been shots fired at all was a bad sign. Everyone knew containment was a priority and shooting at the thing was not supposed to happen. It indicated that something had gone awry.

And if something had gone bad and Mikey made it to the other team, faced the creature before they caught up to him... it didn't bear thinking about.

Raph chose the right-most tunnel again, deciding that it was most likely to get them closer to where the other teams had gone and presumably to the scene of whatever was happening. Had happened. It sounded like the fight was over and his brother was missing...

So when they saw Mikey up ahead, standing stock-still, Raph felt a rush of relief that his brothers head was still on his shoulders. Until Raph took it off for disobeying a direct order and behaving so stupidly.

"Mikey, you moron..." Don began. Raph made a curt gesture for him to be quiet. He could see Mikey through his goggles, unmoving. And something else too. Several something else's, also not moving, lying on the floor.

Through the infra red goggles, Raph could see the fading heat signatures emanating from the shapes, that came to him in a variety of hues rather than a coherent picture. He had lots of experience using the goggles and usually it wasn't too hard to work out what was what or even think of the way they looked as weird. But this was a first.

"I lost it," said Mikey in frustration. "It must have been right here but it was gone when I got here."

"Good thing too bonehead." Raph made his way to Mikey's side and checked out the scene. Three bodies floated in the few inches of water that remained in the sewer tunnel, the remains of Team B. At some point the two teams had split up without notifying the turtles and this had been the result.

Don pulled off the goggles and pulled out his own torch, shining the light onto the bodies, hoping to see a sign of life from one of them at least and maybe save some lives – but the sudden bright light told them all they needed to know, not to mention gave them nightmare fodder for quite some time to come. One agent had been hit so hard that his head hung backward at an unnatural angle, his eyes still open as if he were looking behind himself. The second had deep slash wounds his leg that had almost severed the appendage, the artery cut through, blood turning the dirty water around him red. The third hadn't fallen victim to the creature but was no less dead, a bullet having gone wild and entered the back of his head, the exit wound in his forehead obliterating his face.

"I think I'm gonna hurl," said Mikey shakily.

"Where did the others go?" Raph glanced around, wondering why they had split up without notifying them. What had made them do that? Had Team C fled when the creature attacked?

There was a noise ahead of them and the creature stepped into the mouth of the tunnel.

Don swung his torch up in that direction and for the first time, the three got a good look at the thing they had been pursuing Taller than them by at least two feet, its left side was charred from the fire at the base and blood leaked slowly from numerous wounds, none of which looked mortal, the fluid seeming tinged with a white ichor. It's eyes bore into them, red and wild, teeth bared as it spied them.

Time stood still.

Raphael drew his gun, feeling stuck in slow motion, hoping the creature didn't recognise the gesture. His eyes never left the creature as he drew a bead on it, remembering the one at the base and how a few well placed shots to the head had immobilised it. Ankle deep in the corpses of other agents, the tranquilliser gun didn't even occur to him...

"Raph, _NO_!"

Don slammed into Raph, not hard enough to knock him off his feet but hard enough so his balance was thrown, the gun swinging wide. Managing not to pull the trigger, Raph regained his balance and risked shooting Don a glance that spoke volumes.

"What the hell are you _doing_ Don? We have to stop that thing..."

"_Look_ at it!"

The torch wavered wildly in Don's grip, but Raph could see everything he needed to. Some big bastard that could rip them apart with its bare claws, staring at them from the end of the tunnel, its numerous injuries only minor when they should have put it down for good.

Mikey gasped. "Does it have a _shell_?"

"Bishop said it was a test subject," snapped Raph, slightly unnerved, but remembering finally that he had a tranquilliser gun and pulling that out instead.

The creature roared once, loudly, its head thrown back, the sound echoing around the tunnel. Then it turned and disappeared back the way it had emerged.

"Damn!" Raph glanced down in disgust, realising they would have to make their way through the remains of their colleagues to pursue it. "Let's get after it!"

"No, wait." Don's voice was without inflection, sounding odd. "That wasn't some animal test. Not at the size it was."

"Don, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Dr Lee had grown in proportion to his mass, some kind of growth enhancement at a guess. If the creature had the same serum, then it's in proportion to the doctors transformation too."

"So?"

"Don't you see?" Don turned to Raph and Mikey, the light of the torch revealing a haunted look in his eyes. "It's about two foot taller than us, it has a _shell_, it's got the same physical characteristics as we do, down to the facial structure or at least what I'd guess the facial structure to have been prior to this new mutation."

Mikey blinked. "You're saying it was a mutant _before_ it turned into a monster?"

Don nodded. "Not just a mutant, it had to have been adult or teenage to begin with due to the size of it. It must have been mutated years ago."

"Let me get this straight." Raph replaced his gun and used his free hand to massage his forehead. "You think the scientists at the base somehow managed to create a mutagen, turn test animals into mutants and then do _this_ to them? _Why_?"

"In the name of science probably," said Don, dismay written all over his face. "That's what they do at the base, break boundaries. Although this was probably an accident, since Dr Lee was infected too and the creature got out."

There was a moments silence, then Raph sighed. "However it came about, we have to go after it anyway. It could hurt more people."

"And what? Just deliver it back to Bishop for more tests?" Mikey rarely lost his temper, but he seemed to be holding together the frayed ends of his nerves at that moment.

"He's right," said Don. "Even if it was an accident, the implications of this kind of thing are far reaching. If some of the samples from that creature got into the wrong hands..."

"Bishop _is_ the wrong hands," said Mikey heatedly.

"But Bishop hates mutants, us included," said Raph. "His life's mission is to keep the Earth for the humans. Why would he keep the experiment going?"

"Knowing the way Bishop thinks, for some kind of super-soldier project, an ultimate protector of the human race," said Don. "Hell, you saw how hard that first one was to put down and this one's been through the wars already. If they could be controlled..."

Raph nodded. "We go after it, destroy it totally. Make sure it can never be used for anything like that."

"Bishop'll probably just use the damn serum on us in that case," muttered Donnie.

"Not happening," replied Raph, more confidently than he felt. "This is the perfect opportunity. We get that thing, obliterate all traces of it – then we can use the sewer system to get the hell away from here."

Mikey looked shocked. "You mean, go AWOL? How?"

"Easy. We do what we have to, ditch the radio and take off. No one will even notice for a while. Now's the only chance, since for the first time, it's just the three of us away from the base."

"You're wrong about that."

The three turtles had been so caught up in their discussion that they had failed to notice the person approaching from their blind side, the tunnel that the creature hadn't taken. Layla Harris, Mikey's latest protege, a gun in each hand,trained in their direction.

"Bishop always knew this would happen one day," she said calmly, no trace of the slightly shy and uncertain rookie that Mikey had been trying to train. "I suggest you give up your weapons. Now."


	8. Blood Brother

My apologies for the delay in posting - darned real life. And thank you to everyone who reviewed! They are always most appreciated.

&&&&&&&&&

Mikey stared at the woman aiming casually at them. "Layla? What the hell are you doing?"

"Sorry Mikey," she said unrepentantly. "But I'm not really a rookie. Bishop wanted me to keep an eye on you."

"On me?" Mikey looked completely confused. "But why?"

"Well, not just on you. There's been someone around all of you, reporting back to him, just in case something like this happened."

"Let me guess," snarled Raph. "Bishop had his spies all over the place, making sure we didn't step outta line, decide we'd had enough of his bullshit."

"Pretty much," said Layla, never relaxing her guard. "Been getting reports about all of you since you were kids. He's always been prepared for something like this. Personally, I'm surprised you waited this long to make a break for it. Now drop your weapons before I ventilate your shells."

Raph curled his lip for a moment, wondering if there was any way they could disarm her before she could fire at them – then, realising it was unlikely without at least one of them getting hit, threw down the tranquilliser gun, pulled out his gun and tossed that aside too. But he made sure they landed on the ledge above the water. If there was any chance he could get to them, he wanted the weapons to be in working order and not wet and ruined. Don and Mikey followed his example, Mikey taking the longest time with his extensive stash of explosives. Raph just hoped he hadn't given up all of them.

"Smart," said Layla. "Now, we're gonna go back to Bishop and you'll be taken back to the base. One wrong move and I blow a hole through whichever one of you's nearest. Get it?"

"We get it," snapped Raph, furious that she got the drop on them in the first place.

"That creature's still in the tunnels somewhere Layla!" said Mikey urgently.

Layla gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I pumped enough bullets into it. Has to be dying. The rest of the team are gonna bring it down while I take care of you freaks."

"It already brought down one of the teams," pointed out Don.

"They got careless. Start walking. And put your hands where I can see 'em."

Raph turned toward the tunnel leading to the exit, hands raised. He hated to turn his back on his enemy, it made him edgy when he couldn't see where the gun was pointed, but it was a relief to not have to look at her any more, the expression of calm, almost remorseful efficiency. "So, how many people has Bishop had working for him?"

"A few. He doubted that you three could be trusted. Looks like he was right."

"So why were we brought up like we were instead of as test subjects?"

"Agent Bishop has his superiors too and they chose not to listen to him when he suggested that. But as you were about to go AWOL and destroy Government property, I guess they'll change their minds."

"Government property being that poor creature out there?"

"Yes. You three are Government property too. It's not up to you what happens to you."

"We're basically test subjects," said Don, uncharacteristically bitter, his eyes firmly forward as they walked. "They wanted to see our potential, if we could be integrated and taught. And they could take samples from us too. We always knew it, that's why we've never been allowed from the base at the same time without a whole bunch of other agents. Well, not before today and the circumstances were a little – unusual."

"And what happens to us now?"Mikey asked.

"I don't know," replied Layla. "And frankly, I really don't..."

Her voice cut off as a loud crash sounded behind the four of them. The three turtles turned, ignoring the previous warnings. Layla spun around, both guns blazing. Gunshot echoed throughout the tunnel, the flashes from the guns illuminating the scene in nightmarish bursts.

The creature was right behind them.

Layla's bullets hit it in the torso and she yelled defiantly as they connected, sure of her triumph. The turtles, unarmed, could only watch...

Almost unarmed. Mikey had been waiting for the opportunity to use some of the smaller devices he had stashed away, having managed to discard only the obvious weapons.

The creature _shrieked_, the force of the bullets forcing it back – and then it swung a powerful arm, catching Layla's right hand and knocking the gun in it aside, throwing off her balance so the gun in her left missed it, the bullets taking a chunk from the tunnel wall instead.

And then it grabbed her by the right upper arm, gripping the flesh cruelly tight, pulling her toward it.

Layla screamed in alarm, bringing her gun around to put a bullet in its brain – but it swatted the hand as casually as a person might swat at a fly, the gun flying out of sight, the unimportant cracking sounds suggesting a couple of the bones had broken.

Mikey ignited the grenade he had been hiding, small enough to stash unseen, sophisticated enough to release a short but powerful blast...

"_FIRE IN THE HOLE!"_

Raph and Donnie both dived for cover, Mikey standing his ground long enough to hurl the device at the creature before following suit.

Oblivious to the danger it was in, the creature pulled Layla closer to it, snarling in her face, tightening its grip so that the snapping of her bones was clearly audible over the sound of her screams...

The grenade exploded.

The flash was bright enough that the turtles could see it light up the tunnel through their closed eyes and defensive postures. Sewer water kicked up in the air, showering everyone with foul smelling gunk. Layla's screams abruptly cut off, but the creature's more than made up for it, the volume almost deafening them all, the echoes making the noise seem even louder, assaulting them from all sides.

And within seconds, the grenade had burned itself out, plunging the tunnel back into darkness and leaving only the tortured shrieks of the creature.

Raph went for his infra red goggles, which were still perched on the top of his head, then decided there was little point and snatched for his torch instead, which Layla hadn't insisted they discard, flipping it on and aiming the light in the direction of the creature.

It threw Layla's limp form aside, turning from the light and stumbling back the way it had come, in the direction of their weapons. It continued to roar, almost falling and leaning a hand on the wall of the tunnel to regain its balance. It was trying to get away.

Raph darted to where it had grabbed Layla and searched the area for her guns. At first he saw nothing, then the torch light glinted off something metallic below the dirty water and Raph grabbed at it, finding one of the guns and lifting it, wondering if he could finish it all now with one well aimed shot...

The gun didn't fire, too wet to be operative.

Before he could tell Mikey to pull his finger out of his ass and find another one of those nifty grenades, the creature was almost back to the fork in the tunnels, still having some troubles walking, evidently in pain. By the time they managed anything, they would have lost it for sure.

But at least they could grab their guns now and go after it. They'd barely made it a few hundred yards from the place they discarded their weapons and there was no one to stop them anymore.

As if reading his thoughts, Mikey hurried over to Layla, who was lying face down in four inches of sewer water. Raph reflected that if she _was_ still alive, she was gonna have some serious gastric issues over the next few days.

The creature disappeared down the tunnel running left. Raph allowed himself to turn his attention to his brothers. Donatello was heading over to where Mikey was attempting to find some sign of life in his treacherous protege.

His eyes met Donnie's as he approached, the scientist telling him everything he needed to know in one look.

"I killed her." Mikey's voice was low and filled with horror.

Raph was about to dispute the claim when he took a good look at the corpse and rethought. The woman had taken some serious damage from the creature true, both arms twisted at a weird angle where it had shattered the bones, deep wounds where its claw like hands had broken the skin... but those things alone were survivable. What most likely caused her death was the damage to her face and neck, the charred, melted skin on the left side of her face and the raw blisters on the right. The flesh of her neck, above the plain black T-shirt and bulletproof vest, had split in several places. Blood was flowing from her wounds but slowly, the way it did when the heart was no longer pumping it around the body.

"I just threw the grenade," continued Mikey, oblivious to Don and Raph, talking more to himself than them. "I didn't even think about her... I just saw my chance..."

"Hey Mike," said Raph, resting his hand on his brothers shell. "That thing woulda killed her anyway. You did what you had to and you probably saved our shells."

"And I don't think these would have been immediately fatal," added Don, examining the injuries. "I imagine it was a heart attack brought on by the situation. It happens at times, even in younger people and she was just about to be torn limb from limb."

"And she was blown halfway to hell," added Mikey.

"I doubt it helped matters," said Don truthfully. "But if you hadn't done that, the creature would have killed her or else we would be half way back to the base by now to experience being on the wrong side of the cage."

"Speaking of which." Raph hurried over to where they had discarded their weapons and retrieved them. "We need to go after it, stop it. No matter what else we do now, we can't let that thing wander around like it is. It could hurt someone."

"And if Bishop catches it, he'll use it to further his research," said Don, obviously still angered that he had more to do with the creatures existence than he would have liked.

Mikey nodded, leaving Layla's corpse where it was. "Let's go. I've got enough blast to incinerate it so Bishop can't retrieve a single cell."

"Put the poor damn thing out of it's misery," agreed Don.

Raph shoved his gun in his belt. "Let's go."

_&&&&&&&&&&&&&&_

_There was pain._

_Even before he realised he was changing, there had been pain, which had risen as time passed. The change had brought with it a terrible buzzing in his head that served to anger him more, the memories of his time in the labs running through his mind. It was as if the floodgates had been opened. He couldn't control his fury any more. _

_He couldn't even begin to try, not with the unceasing sounds in his head and the agony that flared through his bones as they elongated, the terrible cramping of his muscles as they grew. A part of him, the part of him that was still capable of thought, was dimly afraid that by breaking through the bars of the cage there would be PUNISHMENT... but they had to catch him first. They had hit him with little pellets that left scratches across his skin, irritating him, fuelling his rage. and for the first time, there was something he could do about it._

_How he got out of the building was mostly a blur. He had thrown aside everyone who got in his way, trying to get away, no though or concept toward revenge. He wanted to go somewhere to heal, to wait for the pain to go away. But people kept getting in his way, giving him targets for his anger._

_There had been men everywhere and then a terrible roaring sound had drilled into his head, followed by hot agony in his side – but the noise and the burning had covered his escape. He had found a place to hide, to heal, to recover from whatever had been done to him..._

_And they had followed him._

_The first ones had merely shot at him in startled reflex, not the scratching pellets but something sharp. One had missed, another bounced harmlessly off his thickened plastron. The third had penetrated his arm and stayed there until he yanked it out, crushing it and rushing into the men, slamming them aside, picking them up and ensuring they would never be able to hurt him again. But whatever had embedded into his arm had made his head feel swimmy, increasing the buzzing in his ears, making his vision dark and his reflexes even slower._

_And then other men had come, one with the weapon that released the stinging pellets – but none of them attacked him and he backed off. He had seen them before, with the other men, but they didn't look like men. They looked – familiar somehow. Maybe he should know why, but some abstract concepts, such as memory and recognition, were becoming too difficult for him to focus on. There was pain. There was anger. And there was the terrible confusion beneath it all. He didn't know why he was being chased. There was some vague idea of PUNISHMENT – but even that was becoming dim, an echo of fear that he couldn't put a face to._

_And there were still more of them, everywhere. Another – man, although he couldn't really tell the difference – had invaded his sanctuary and he struck before he could be seen, his instincts warning him that he was under threat..._

_And then, the pain again, a hundred times more intense than before, the same dancing lights on his body, eating his skin._

_The pain was too much._

_He retreated, not knowing what else to do, expecting the strange men to come after him, finish him off. But they didn't. He wanted to flee but the best he could do was stumble away, in agony where the lights had hit him, bleeding from a number of scratches inflicted upon him, the dart that had hit him making him dizzy. And the noises in his ears increased, making him want to lash out at whatever was tormenting him so. But he couldn't see what made the noise._

_He made it as far as he could before giving up, leaning against the tunnel wall and sliding down it, sitting, trying to regain his strength. Once or twice he batted at the air, hoping to chase away whatever was making the noise that hurt his head, but his fists connected with nothing._

_For an unknown amount of time, he rested. The side of his face and neck where the light had exploded gave him the most pain and distracted him from the rest of his wounds, but several of them made themselves known from time to time, particularly his arm. As the minutes passed he began to think about moving on, hiding somewhere else, his instincts telling him that he was too exposed in this place and he needed to get away..._

_And over the buzzing in his ears, he heard the sound of someone approaching, trying to be quiet but not quiet enough. They would find him. And then they would kill him._

_There was only one thing left to do._

_He got to his feet and prepared to fight for his life._

_&&&&&&&&&&&&_

There was no talk between the three turtles and no discussion of what came next. They were going after the creature. If they survived, they could make a plan. For the moment, survival was the only thing on their minds. The rest could wait.

Raphael led the way, a gun in either hand, prepared for the creature to attack.

Michelangelo was right behind him, having retrieved his own weapons, debating what was the best course of action to take – in an enclosed space, an explosive charge could do an equal amount of damage to them as it would the target.

_This is why I hate going out in the field. One wrong choice and it all goes to hell._

Donatello was armed with guns similar to the ones his brother had, but he had also snagged the tranquilliser gun, hoping that it might be enough to take the creature down should the bullets fail. He was a pretty good shot, but he'd put money on Raph to hit the thing before he even had the chance. Whether that hit put it down though – that was another matter.

The creature had gone some distance but it had left a trail that wasn't too hard to follow – the tunnels showed obvious signs of having been used very recently and it seemed unlikely that the other teams had gotten this far.

Raph suddenly frowned as he recalled there were two guys unaccounted for, the rest of Layla's team. Had they been killed by the creature? Had she sent them back to the surface while she chased down the turtles? Or were they still wandering the tunnels somewhere?

No point in worrying about it. There wasn't a lot he could do.

And then there was a noise ahead of them, splashing water. It could have been a rat or maybe even one of the missing agents, but he knew it wasn't. It was too loud.

Donatello focused the torch ahead of them, all of them having decided against the infra red goggles as they had been little help previously. The creature was there, walking slowly but purposefully toward them. With clinical detachment, Don was able to better take in what he had noticed first about the creature and more besides. He had been right about the height difference between them and it, also about the musculature growth. But what really gave him pause wasn't the differences between the creature and the three turtles.

It was the similarities.

The shell resembled theirs, larger and seemingly thicker but with markings exactly like those he saw on his brothers backs daily. It had a plastron as they did, which had increased in size in accordance to the creatures change and seemed to offer more protection than their own – shots that would have cracked their chest plates had barely even scarred its own – but was in identical proportions to theirs.

_Assuming it originally came into contact with a mutagen synthesised from us before it was turned into – this – it must be close to our age judging by its size, definitely the same species, probably done to make sure the mutagen was stable before trying to cross-mutate. _

Raphael raised his gun, getting the creature in his sights, going for a head shot. _Damn, that thing must be tough. Even if the bullets couldn't get through its shell or plastron, there's enough chunks from its arms and legs for a normal mutant turtle to bleed out. Heals up fast, just like the one at the base, but I'll bet a couple of bullets to the brain close its eyes for good._

The creature roared, throwing its head back in a display intended to intimidate...

Raph's bullet hit it under the chin, shattering the jaw and turning the bellow into a muffled squeal of pain. It staggered backward, claw-like hands flying to the wound.

And still it stayed standing, shrieking loudly, the echoes making Mikey and Don wince.

"Put it down Raph," said Mikey, his voice barely audible over the noise. "Just... _please_ put it out of its pain."

Raph had been blanking out the screams, but he heard Mikey's words and nodded briefly, taking a couple of seconds to aim before squeezing the trigger again.

Blood flew out of the side of the creatures head, silencing its screams. It fell backward, hitting the ground with a crash, throwing up filthy water that was tinged with its blood.

Mikey kept his fingers resting on one of the flash grenades that had wounded the creature in the first place. "Is it – dead?"

"I'm not sure." Don took a few steps forward to examine the creature, but Raph took a hand of his gun momentarily, holding it up briefly in a gesture of cessation before returning its grip to the gun, lowering it very slightly but keeping it at the ready.

"Let's make sure before we take any chances," he said, talking a few steps forward, never taking his eyes from the creature lying in the tunnel...

The creature moved slightly, flexing its hand and letting out a quiet, piteous noise in the back of its throat.

"Crap!" Raph jerked his gun higher again, keeping it aimed at the creature.

"What is it, the Turtle-nator or something?" asked Mikey.

"No." Don raised his own gun, clearly not about to risk being wrong, steeping cautiously forward and getting a closer look at the mutant.

It was still alive, as hardy as the first creature they had encountered – but in terrible shape. Not only had the bullets Raph fired into it caused serious trauma, but the wounds inflicted on it before the encounter had taken a toll also. Don doubted very much that they would have been able to get close enough to it to inflict enough damage to take it down had it not already been weakened, the same way that the other one had been weakened. That one had lived, but this one, that might once have been a mutant turtle just like they were, had been through worse.

It opened red-rimmed, muddy eyes and looked at him. Don saw no anger in the gaze, just incomprehension and pain.

"It's not getting up," he reported to the others, lowering his gun.

Mikey stepped up behind him and gazed on the creature. "So... what do we do now?"

"The only thing we can do. What we came here for." Raphael joined his brothers and aimed his gun.

The creatures bleary gaze met Raphael's and he held it for a moment before refocusing on the shot.

A second later, a bullet went through the creatures eye, the orbital bone breaking under the pressure, a gout of blood mixed with white fluid erupting from the wound and spilling down its cheek as the bullet made its way through the skulls tissues and lodged within the creatures brain.

For a long time none of the turtles moved, staring at the thing, just waiting for it to move, show some sign of life – but there was nothing.


	9. Epilogue Part One

**Author Note: **The epilogue got so long and had two seperate themes, so I decided to break it into two. Think it works better that way. But they're both going up tonight, so no waiting around at least! Enjoy!_  
_

_&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&_

Raphael emerged wearily from the tunnel, limping slowly, head bowed. The floodlight picked him out easily, casting his shadow onto the floor behind him, stretched out to almost fifteen feet long.

He was quite alone.

Agent Bishop strode forward, raising a hand to his fellow operatives to indicate for them to remain where they were, his gun at the ready, taking no chances. He stopped a few inches from Raphael, who barely raised his head to look up.

Bishop glared at the turtle. "The others. Where are they?"

"They're..." Raphael shook his head. "There's no one else left."

Startled, Bishop realised that Raphael was barely holding his emotions in check. What had gone so cataclysmic wrong that a renowned hard-ass like Raph act this way? It was supposed to be a simple seek and contain, yet only one survivor walked out?

Infuriated, Bishop aimed the gun at Raphael. Raph raised an eye ridge but didn't flinch, staring down the barrel as if he didn't realise that it could ventilate his guts in a heartbeat. Then, he slowly raised his own hand and placed the palm over the barrel. If the trigger were pulled, the hand would be disintegrated along with half the turtle behind it.

Yet the message was clear.

"Shoot me then," said Raph wearily. "If ya really think it's gonna make things different, shoot me right now. But it won't change anything. Everyone's dead in there."

For a moment there was a standoff, Bishop's angry gaze boring into Raph's brown eyes – then he took the gun away, shoving it back into the holster in one angry motion.

"You." Bishop pointed at a couple of agents who had been waiting outside in preparation to grab their prey. "Take him back to the lab."

The pair took Raph by his arms and led him away, the turtle not even bothering to argue let alone resist.

Scowling, Bishop approached the entrance to the tunnel. Even from here he could feel the intense heat that was being generated from within. There was a fire down there, raging out of control. Something else to be concerned about.

One simple mission, capture the quarry, blown all the way to hell. Figuratively and literally.

What had gone so horribly wrong?

&&&&&&&&&&

_20 minutes earlier..._

_The three turtles might have stared at the creature's remains even longer, but suddenly Raph's radio went off in a burst of static, causing all of them to jump and Mikey to squeak in alarm. _

"_...in Raphael! What's g... there? Over."_

_Raph grabbed the radio and glanced up at his wide eyed brothers. "We've yet to locate the target sir. And we've lost contact with Team B and Team C. Over."_

"_Dammit... target found and... not kill it or else... your lives! Over and..."_

"_Over and out," repeated Raph softly, turning off the radio. "Guys, we need a plan and fast."_

_Mikey frowned. "I thought the plan was to make a break for it?"_

"_And it still is," said Raph. "But how long before they come looking for us? An hour? And we're not hard to spot."_

_Donnie nodded. "We need something to distract him while we get away. Mikey, you said you could incinerate the creature, can you make the fire big enough to block the tunnels?"_

"_Easy."_

_Raph sighed deeply. "Not enough and it forces us above ground. It's gonna be dawn soon and we have to be outta sight by then. The only way Bishop isn't coming after us is if he doesn't think we're still alive."_

"_No problem," said Mikey. "I can make this tunnel go up so fast, Bishop'll think we fried."_

"_Wouldn't work," Raph replied. "He'd search just in case. He's smell a set up a mile away. Don, what do you know about the surrounding area?"_

"_We're a few miles from the base. There's nothing much around until you go another six miles west. Then there's a small town, population less than three thousand. I have no idea what it's like though."_

"_Right." Raph paused for a moment, thinking things through. "Here's the plan. You two, go toward the town. Hide in the sewers as long as you can, or find somewhere better that you can lay low and not be seen. Don't go out in daylight if you can help it."_

_Mikey looked confused. "What are you gonna do while we're hiding?"_

"_You'll have to give me a ten minute head start before you burn that thing to a crisp," continued Raph as though he hadn't heard, indicating to the creature. "I'll go back to the agents and tell them that no one survived the explosion."_

"_Raph, NO!"_

"_They'll take you back to base!"_

"_And even if it is a mess, they'll be keeping an eye on you!"_

"_You might not be able to get away again!"_

_Raphael closed his eyes briefly. "There's no other choice. This is the only way that Bishop will let you both get far enough away. I'll meet you in the town at oh-one-hundred hours tomorrow."_

"_How will we know where you are?" asked Don._

"_I'll find you. Every town has a bad part and there's always a bar. Find a lookout point around there somewhere and keep an eye out for me. And try to find some disguises. But don't wait for too long. If I don't show, get out fast."_

"_Raph..." Mikey shook his head for a moment, then startled Raph by throwing both his arms around his brothers neck. "You better be there. You just better."_

"_Don't make us come looking for you," added Don, his tone mild enough but a serious underlay beneath the words. Not a bad joke, but a promise. The usually restrained turtle also put an arm around his brother, the other hand patting Mikey on the shell. _

"_You do and I'll kick your shell," said Raph gruffly, hugging them back quickly, not wanting to make the moment any more awkward than it already was. Then he stepped back, out of the embrace. "You got ammo?"_

_Don nodded solemnly. Mikey tried to roll his eyes and grimace at such an obvious question, but he ended up grimacing. _

"_Give me ten minutes. And don't forget, if I'm not there tomorrow, get as far away from here as you can."_

_Raph took a last look at his brothers before turning and jogging back toward the entrance to the sewer. He was already wondering if he'd ever see them again._

_He found a spot to wait, not far from the exit but hopefully far enough that whatever Mikey had planned for the creature's remains wouldn't affect him too badly. As an afterthought, he checked what he was wearing, smirking slightly as he realised he was already filthy enough to pass for having been in a major fight. He ditched the infra red goggles and the tranquilliser gun in his belt, but kept the guns. He would no sooner voluntarily rid himself of those than he would drink acid._

_There was a muffled noise from behind him, where he had left his brothers and he guessed that Mikey and Don had retreated a safe distance and detonated an explosion. He squeezed further into a gap in the wall, hoping he was out of danger – and then felt a rush of heat as the air from further on was pushed in his direction. There was a loud roaring sound and some crashes and thuds from the same direction and Raph had enough presence of mind left to smirk. By the sound of things, Mikey was bringing down the tunnel, making the job of finding bodies still more difficult. _

_He waited as long as he dared, knowing the tunnel was on fire and the flames were no doubt headed in his direction before putting on his game face. Normally he cultivated a tough expression, rarely allowing any emotion save for grim satisfaction show through in front of the agents. But after everything that had happened that night and the knowledge that he may never see his brothers again, it was surprisingly easy to show vulnerability and shock._

_He slowly emerged from the tunnel._

_&&&&&&&&&_

"Not talking to us Raphael?" The first agent was one with whom Raph had spoken to on several occasions, Gordon-Somebody or Somebody-Gordon, but everyone at the base called him Gordy.

"Leave him be Gordy," said the other agent, Benson if Raph remembered correctly. For a moment Raph was absurdly grateful to Benson for sticking up for him and crushed the feeling.

Benson opened the door for Raphael and indicated for the turtle to climb in. Raph complied, keeping up the charade of being too stunned by events to put up an argument. If he managed to con them into letting their guards down, so much the better. In reality, he was alert and aware, unwilling to give in to the urge to let the others take over. Although that would have been easy and welcome.

It was the look in the creature's eyes that he kept coming back to, right before he had put a bullet through one and closed them for good. There had been pain there and muddy incomprehension – but as soon as it saw the gun, it looked almost grateful. Peaceful somehow. As if it knew what was about to happen and welcomed it.

No way did Raph want to end up like that, dying in some dirty tunnel while people chased him down for the secrets of his DNA, happy to finally be put out of his misery. He had to remain alert, ready. Because he suspected that no matter what he had said, if he didn't meet his brothers, they would be planning to re-enter the base and remove him forcibly. Two turtles against a heavily armed Government division on their home turf. It would never work.

That was why he noticed the agent before he got in, also sat on the back seat. Although 'sat' was a relative term. The agent was sprawled out, groaning weakly, looking like he might slide onto the floor at any moment. The guy was definitely hurting, but seemed more sick than injured.

"You sure you're alright Raphie-boy?" asked Gordy jovially, getting into the front passenger seat. "You look a little shell-shocked."

Benson, getting into the drivers seat, snorted with laughter and tried to smother it. "That's enough Gordy."

"I gotta laugh or I'm gonna fucking _cry_," muttered Gordy. "Some mad scientist makes a fucking Frankenstein monster that blows up half the base and we're stuck babysitting short, green and sullen? And don't get me started on the upchuck machine over there. I swear, he hurls in this jeep and he can get out fucking _walk_ to the base. I don't care _how_ sick he is."

"Give him a break," said Benson, putting the car into gear and driving away from the rest of Bishop's teams. "He was one of the first guys to go up against the freak at the base and not only does he live, he comes out here to help nab the other one? That's enough to make anyone sick."

"Yeah, lotta help he was," snapped Gordy, turning to glare at the two in the back.

Raph largely ignored the exchange, mulling over his options in his mind. With the three agents in the vehicle and the turmoil back at the base, it was probably safer to make his move when they got back. Always assuming he was given the chance...

The unnamed agent in the backseat moaned again and Raph risked a sidelong look at him. The guy was sweating profusely, gritting his teeth, obviously in some pain. Raph noticed that the guy was rubbing his left arm constantly and the veins running to the hand had gone red and inflamed looking, like the worst case of blood poisoning ever.

_There's something seriously wrong with that guy._

And then the guy grabbed his head, leaning forward in one fluid motion. Raph jerked away – even if he was covered in sewer crud, he had no desire to get puke all over his clothes too. He stank bad enough already.

Gordy sighed. "Told you he was gonna puke."

"We'll be back in five minutes max," said Benson impatiently. "A little puke never hurt anyone."

The two agents in the front seat continued to bicker, not paying any attention to the backseat, but Raph couldn't stop staring at the guy beside him. He wasn't puking, but his entire body was shaking. It looked like his skin was moving beneath his clothes.

And then the radio came to life in a hail of static.

"_...Bishop! Agent Bishop... situation! The base... in the med wing... turned to a monster! It... infected! The injured are... help!"_

Gordy grabbed the radio. "This is Agent Gordon, what the hell are you on about? Over."

"_...hurt by the... transferred to the blood... all mutating an... can't contain... mergency!"_

"I didn't quite copy that, over."

"What are they talking about?" asked Benson, sounding irritated.

"I've no idea," growled Gordy. "Base, do you copy, over? Great, now I'm not getting anything."

Raph's eyes widened and he forgot all about his act, turning to the guy beside him. The guy had his fingers buried in his thick brown hair and the hands were definitely increasing in size, widening and lengthening. The seams of his standard black long sleeve shirt were tearing apart, although he wasn't moving. Worse, the anguished moan was rapidly deepening into more of a snarl.

"Oh shit-_fire_!" Raph backed up as far as the closed quarters would let him and pulled his gun.

The movement didn't escape Gordy, who dropped the radio and pulled his own weapon, aiming it at the turtle. "What you doing Raphael? Put that thing away before I put a bullet through your fucking..."

The agent in the backseat straightened suddenly. Previously he had been slumped and it had been hard to judge his size, but Raph doubted he would have been able to knock his head against the roof of the vehicle then. The man's eyes were red and rheumy, the flesh of his face seeming to run toward his chin, the already chiselled jawbone becoming ever more prominent.

Gordy's eyes grew round and horrified.

Before Raph could do anything, the – thing – reached out an arm that seemed weirdly elongated, the shreds of the sleeve falling from it, snatching Gordy's hair and yanking him forward over the seat. Gordy shrieked, flailing wildly. His arm hit Raph's hand, the one holding the gun, and the shot that might have put down the creature went wide. Gordy had enough presence of mind to fire his own weapon, hitting the former agent almost point blank in the chest. At the same time, he gave the panicked Benson a hefty kick to the side of the head, knocking him into the door and making him lose control of the jeep.

The two shots in the confined quarters rendered Raph temporarily deaf for the second time that night. The creatures agonised wails at the injury it had sustained came to him as quietly as if it had been miles away. He brought his gun around for another shot, knowing he could worry about any permanents damage to his hearing if he lived through this – but the out of control jeep hit a rock and bounced crazily, throwing him off balance.

The creature pulled Gordy's head back hard and Raph was suddenly glad he couldn't hear the crack as the agents head bent at an unnatural angle.

The monster lunged for him and Raph's shell hit the door of the car as he tried to get further backward. The corpse of the agent prevented the creatures first attempt, but there would be no such luck the second time...

And then the jeep hit something else, veered wildly, throwing the occupants to the side, then hit something else and tilted. For a few moments it seemed to Raph they would continue to cruise on two wheels – and then gravity took over and the vehicle tipped too far, landing on its side, rolling over once before coning to rest on its roof.

For several seconds Raph lay dazed, angled uncomfortably on his shoulders and shell, the weight of Gordy's body lying on top of him. Then he realised the creature was still unaccounted for, not to mention tougher than hell, and he'd better move before it decided to try him again. Using the handle of his gun, he smashed the window on his right and cleared as much of the glass as he could with the muzzle, inching out headfirst on his back, having trouble thanks to the weight of Gordy's corpse.

As he cleared the window, he glanced up and realised the sky was getting lighter. Soon it would be daytime. He couldn't help but be grateful – this had been the longest night of his life. And it wasn't over yet.

He got to his feet, checking out the car. The windows were cracked and the bodywork was dented. He saw no movement from within and he wondered if Benson was still alive – or the creature. He stepped forward to try to pull open the drivers door but stopped himself, the cold, pragmatic side of him reminding him that he was in no real shape to fight anymore should the creature still be alive and this was the perfect opportunity for him to get away unseen.

Not that there were a large amount of hiding places should anyone realise he was missing. But from the radio message before the crash, it sounded like the agents would have a lot more on their minds than a missing turtle.

He left the agent and the creature to live or die on their own and started off in the direction of the next town. He'd find his brothers soon enough and then they could all get away from this place.


	10. Epilogue Part Two

And this is it! The end... sniffles. My thanks go out to everyone who reviewed - Reinbeauchaser, Jessiy Landroz, Lunar Ninja, Jaunt, Casey, Reluctant Dragon, Artykidd, The Burninator Named Trogdor and the two anonymous reviews also! I'm glad you liked the fic.

_&&&&&&&&&&&& _

Dr Stephen Richard Hall was uneasy.

There had been reports all over the news about the Government facility where he used to work. According to the television, there had been a terrorist attack resulting in a major explosion and countless deaths. The Government had closed ranks rapidly, there was a lot of footage of hundreds of agents swarming over the area and the army, some distance shots of the burnt-out facility and not a lot else. The details were sketchy, although three different organisations had taken credit for the attack.

Steve Hall had been retired for almost six years, his wife had died two years before and his daughter lived in Boston working for a prestigious art museum. They had always respected the confidential nature of his work at the base, but he had often longed to tell them of the mutant turtles he had been instrumental in saving, how well they had done when exposed to a semi-normal upbringing – and the guilt over the one he had been unable to help. Had they still been at the base? Were they alive or dead? He still had contacts at the facility that he would be able to ask – but it had proved impossible to raise any of them by telephone, although he had left numerous messages asking them to get back to him. No doubt events had left them too busy for such mundaneness.

Or maybe they had been among the fatalities.

Listlessly, he turned off the television and decided to spend some time in the garden. Not that there was much he could do at the time of the year, but anything was better than sitting in front of the television and wondering. Instead he pulled on a coat and went outside, taking with him the cordless phone just in case someone got back to him.

His mind went back to the three turtles, how they might be faring. The hardest part of retiring had been leaving them behind and although he hadn't been sorry to say goodbye to that bastard Bishop, the turtles had been another matter. They had given him a card that Michelangelo had drawn to say goodbye, that he still kept.

He hoped they had lived through whatever had happened. The three he had saved and the one that he hadn't seen since Bishop took him away.

The phone rang.

Quickly, he grabbed it and pressed the receive button. "Dr Hall."

"Doctor, it's Donatello."

For a second, Hall wondered if he had heard right. _"Donnie?"_

"Yeah. Look, we're in kind of a bad situation. We need a place to lay low for a while. Can we come over?"

"Of course! Raphael and Mikey are with you?"

"Yeah. Computer says you live at 66 Brockman Terrace?"

"That's right. Don't worry, it's pretty secluded."

"We're heavily disguised," said Don, suppressing a chuckle. "Be there in a half hour or so. Are you alone?"

"Oh yeah. See you then."

The phone line disconnected and Hall slowly went back to the house – he was in pretty good shape but he was still nearing his seventies. The turtles were here? _Why_ were they here? Admittedly he didn't live too far from the facility but they had never been able to leave it unsupervised before and he didn't believe they would have been allowed to. Which left some very worrying reasoning.

It was more like three quarters of an hour later that there was a knock at the door and he almost ran to answer it. When he opened the door, he gaped for a second and then started to grin. The three had grown several inches since he had seen them last and had tried to hide their strange appearance by wearing the oddest combination of clothes he'd ever seen. They all had on regulation black combats, T-shirts and boots, but Donatello had added a battered fedora and trench coat that looked like he stole them from a passing tramp, Mikey had decided on a scarf, sunglasses and a beanie hat and Raphael was stuck with the ugliest suit jacket Hall had ever seen combined with a stetson about four sizes too large for his head.

"What the hell are you boys wearing?"

"We're in disguise," said Mikey, pulling down his shades and giving a wink. "What do you think?"

"You look like you're out to mug someone. Get in the house before you get arrested."

Hall stood aside and let the three enter, glad it was a dark evening and he lived in a secluded neighbourhood. They had no idea how to be inconspicuous no matter how hard they were trying.

"Did you tell anyone we were coming?" asked Raph authoritatively.

"Not a soul," replied Hall. Raphael had always been the most aggressive of the three, the unofficial leader. Small wonder it would be him asking the question.

Now they were inside, he could see the signs that something _had _happened to them and not a very nice something by the looks. Donnie had a gash on the side of his head, Raph was sporting a selection of colourful bruises and all three were filthy. And they _stank_. Hall wrinkled his nose. "Um, do you boys want to take a shower? I'll rustle up something to eat."

"That would be great," said Don with a weary smile.

"And throw those clothes into the hamper, I'll put them in the machine. Assuming you don't want me just to burn them. I'll find some sweat pants or something to fit."

Taking charge, behaving like the father figure he had once been to them, was keeping his sense of unease at bay and making him feel useful. Questions could wait. The three turtles were a mess.

An hour later the four sat at the kitchen table, having demolished the quick meal, the turtles fortunately no longer smelling of sewers and fire. Hall listened incredulously as Donnie told the story of Lee turning into some kind of mutant, of the second creature they had chased. Don described it as being a turtle similar to themselves, theorising that it had been mutated shortly after they had, probably from a mutagen created from their own blood samples.

Hall knew differently.

_Leonardo..._

"...And then when Raph met up with us, he said one of the agents in the car turned into a mutant too and that the agent had been in contact with Lee." Donatello gave Dr Hall a look that was both angry and infinitely tired. "And that there was a weird communication from the base right before that. It sounds like whatever changed Lee and this other creature infected them somehow. My theory is that when they changed into – whatever – they carried whatever it was in their system, like a virus. When we faced both creatures, they'd been injured. I think the blood got onto their hands and when they inflicted injury, they also passed on the mutation. I don't know how many people got hurt by the mutants, but it was a few. If they all changed like that..."

Hall was beginning to get a headache.

"It explains why the base had to go," added Raph. The car crash had left him covered in bruises but from what he had said, it had been a relatively minor thing and might just have saved his life from the creature the agent had become. "The explosion in the fuel store, that could be hidden easily enough or just passed off as an accident. But to get rid of still more creatures, that had to take some heavy artillery, maybe even nerve gas or grenades. No way Bishop could cover that up so easily. Wonder if he managed to keep any of them for test subjects before the other agencies swooped?"

"Knowing Bishop, he'll find a way," muttered Don.

Hall regarded them for a few moments, wondering if he should tell them about his suspicions. He could no longer get into serious trouble for disclosing information on the fourth turtle that had been found in the sewers that day. Surely they had a right to know.

But... what good would it do? To tell Raphael that there was a good chance he had killed his own brother? To let the three of them have the guilt that would come of knowing there had been four of them and one had suffered so the rest of them didn't have to? That it was pure chance that none of them had been the one to be hidden away for nineteen years having goodness knew what done to them?

Some secrets were better left unsaid.

He broke the silence by returning to mundaneness. "You'll stay here. One of you can have Sarah's old room," he said, referring to his daughter. "And there's a guest bedroom that the other two can share."

Raph glanced up sharply. "We can't stay here. Bishop knows of our connection and he might come looking for me. In know he's got his hands full right now, but he doesn't like loose ends. He thinks Mike and Don are dead, but I don't know if he thinks I am."

"You're in no condition to go anywhere tonight," Hall pointed out. "Stay tonight. I can get you some clothes and supplies in the morning and you can take my old Ford – I've been meaning to put it in the paper but I never get around to it. Good thing as it happens."

"We need to rest Raph," pointed out Mikey.

Raph nodded slowly. "But we can't stay any longer than that. Too dangerous."

"Thanks Dr Hall," added Don. "It's good of you to do this for us."

_You don't know the half of it,_ thought Hall miserably, thinking again of the fourth turtle he had called Leonardo.

"Where will you go?" he said instead of voicing his guilt.

"California!" said Mikey excitedly.

Don shook his head. "Uh-uh. LA!"

Raph gave a rueful grin, his first of the evening. "We'll think of something."

"The three Muskaturtles!" announced Mikey. "One for all and all for one!"

Don palmed his face. "Mikey, you've never even read that book!"

"No, but I saw the film. Well, the cartoon."

Raph rolled his eyes, but let it go. Mikey's humour seemed forced, but after all they had been through they could all use some cheering up.

"Don't worry about us Doc," he said, more confidently than he felt. Where the hell could three giant mutant turtles hide after all? "As long as we stay one step ahead of Bishop, we'll be just fine."


End file.
